Ruins and more ruins

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After spending 1/2 day in Pamukkale, we booked for our ride to Selchuk on a private van. Selchuk is only about 3 hours away from Pamukkale. But because we did a long detour via Aydin (supposed to pick someone up but that someone didnt show up) and Kusadasi (dropped most of the people in the van off), it took us about 4 hours to get there.

Stayed in a guesthouse called Dreams, which was a 4-storey building painted baby pink and purple, with synthetic turf covering the front patio and bushes upon bushes of artificial plants that might even harbour malarial mosquitoes (if they exist in this part of the world). I know the guesthouse looks and sounds totally wrong, a good reason to stay there was the free shuttle to Ephesus, plus it's just next to the bus station. Next day, indeed we got our free shuttle TO Ephesus but was told we'd have to walk the 2 miles back into town (coz apparently petrol's too expensive... like really...#£$^%)

Ephesus is supposedly the best preserved Roman (or was it Greek?! cant tell the difference anymore) ruin you can find in Turkey. Then, walked to the Seven Sleepers cave which at first thought didnt sound that far but as always turned out to be millions of miles away. Regardless, it was a pleasant walk, kinda reminded me of Greece/Sardinia/Sicily (even tho I've neva been to any of these places..), maybe it's the mediterranean effect or maybe I've been watching too many episodes of Globetrekker. Legend has it that a long long looooong time ago, there were 7 dudes who refused to be sacrificed for some sorta religious ritual, ran away from Ephesus and hid in a nearby cave. After an earthquake, they were trapped in the cave and fell asleep. When they finally woke up one day, they realised centuries had passed, couldnt handle the shock and all died one after another. I thought it was a pretty sad and lame story. Whatever happened to 'and they lived happily ever after'?? Well, so was the cave lame.

That day in Selchuk was just one stupid scenario after another. We were arguing on whether to catch a cab back to town or to walk the distance. We had ran out of turkish lira and I didnt mind walking at all, but Sam's such a lazy ass and kept complaining about his back pain. Didnt have any painkillers to shut him up, stuck in the middle of nowhere, not really sure of the way back, and happen to find a cabbie who was willing to take us back to town and pay him when we got some money exchanged, we hopped on. Our plans to get back to town changed swiftly after the cabbie talked us into paying 30lira for a side trip to the Virgin Mary's House and Temple of Artemis. That cabbie was a real idiot as we'd already told him we havent any money left. He knew there's a hefty entrance fee of 11lira for the Virgin Mary's house but still took us there without telling us. In the end, he volunteered to pay the entrance fee on our behalf but we still had to return the money afterwards :(

After the crucifixion of Christ, it is believed that Virgin Mary tagged along with St John to Turkey, spent the remainder of her days here in the mountains above Ephesus. In the little chapel, Sam had one of those light-the-candle spiritual moment and kept tellling me he felt like touching Virgin Mary's feet but was too embarrass to. Like what-the- there were only 2 of us besides two other caretakers who were too busy cleaning the chapel anyway.

The Temple of Artemis was a real shocker. It is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. No, this is not the shocking bit. You wouldnt believe it's actually one of the seven wonders unless someone told you, there were like TWO half-broken columns still standing!! And nothing else...

After getting back to town, we sorta wandered a bit, wanted to see the St John's monastery but was too late. Looked around a famous mosque for a bit. Then it was time to hop onto another bus. Back to Istanbul this time.

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