Day 8 Efesus

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Day 8, Efesus: Today is the day we hit the site. We walk over from town, a pleasant stroll. A parking lot hawker tries to get us to take his bus to the upper entrance, with the line “this makes it a better tour”, but “with only one small stop at a gift shop on the way”. We stand politely until he goes after his next victims, and then we bolt for the lower entrance. By this time we have learned that although there are lots of genuinely friendly people in Turkey, you always have to be aware of the “hidden sales agenda” which is very common. It’s not always a bad thing, it’s something that one needs to be sensitive to.
Efesus is pretty busy. Lots of Russians, Italians, etc.. We meet 3 nice Kurdish guys and chat for a while. One has been to USA, and found Americans to be not so friendly. Robin explains that sometimes Americans are suspicious of people from other cultures, and I offer that at least now we know (in the US) that Kurds are a population in the Middle East. It’s an interesting meeting, as the prior night our local hooka host had some not-so-nice things to say about Kurds. The Kurdish guys encourage us to make a trip to Eastern Turkey next time….maybe.
We take a dolmush out to Pamacuk, and meet an Austrian guy on the way to the beach. We rent some chairs, and relax! Nice spot, warm water, very peaceful. It’s good to be traveling and meeting people from other places, and traveling a bit bohemian like. Come to think of it, in 1990 Joe came to this same beach from Selcuk one night and had a bonfire cookout, and met some Turkish guys.
That night we head back up to the roof, and Robin hits the Hooka again. We meet a group of researchers searching for geothermal reservoirs deep underground, some Italian, some Canadian, some Turkish. We also get a visit to a post-circumcision party down by the old mosque, which is pretty similar to a US style Bar-Mitzvah, except the kid is 5 or 6 years old. Ouch.

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