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Published: April 15th 2008
Izmir
Looking toward the mountains from Shay's apartment15 April 2008
I've been in Turkey for almost a month now. My daughter, Shay, lives in Izmir, so that has been where I have spent the majority of my time. Izmir is a fairly modern city, by Turkish standards, and we even live above a Starbucks, which is still too expensive. For the most part, though, Turkey has been much easier on the wallet than the UK and Europe. Accomodations are inexpensive. After being here 2.5 weeks, I woke up one night with a cramp in my calf and when I stood up to massage it, I ended up passing out and hitting my eyebrow on the baseboard. Hard. I had a huge knot on my head and now I have a black eye and it is still swollen and sore, after a week. I imagine this will take at least a month or two to go away. Thank goodness I have sunglasses.
This past weekend, Shay and I took a trip to the ancient ruins of Ephesus, Heiropolis, and Aphrodisias. We spent the night in Pamukkale, famous for its thermal pool travertines. We rented a car, which was quite adventurous, considering Turkey is one of the most
Izmir
Looking toward the bay from Shay's apartment dangerous countries to drive. I know just walking around here, I put my life at risk. The Turkish people are some of the nicest people I have encountered while traveling, until, that is, they get behind the wheel. Then all bets are off. There is no pedestrian right of way here. At least, none that is observed. Horns blowing are a constant and scooters and motorcycles on the sidewalks are common. They even blow their horn at the pedestrians to move out of the way. It's crazy. I do have to credit the drivers for driving correctly in the passing lanes on the highways, which, I have to say, are very well signed. The drivers will also pull over a little on the shoulder to let another car pass, if they are on a two lane road. Other than that, there are really no holds barred when it comes to driving here. Two or three cars squeezing into one lane is common site.
So, off we go, to brave the roads and small villages of Turkey. There is not much English spoken here, so we would be on our own if we needed help. I've found that if I
Izmir
A common sight. There are many handicapped and child beggars on the street. get someone to write something down, then I grab someone's hand and ask them to show me where this is, it works. People are more than willing to help you, if you can get across to them what you need help with. If anyone knows any English at all, they are more very happy to try to communicate.
After waiting an hour for our car to be delivered (communication issues of course), we sign the rental agreement, the agent makes a copy of my credit card by rubbing his key over the carbon receipt, and we are handed the keys and told to call the agent when we return for him to pick up the car. While Shay was in the car, trying to figure out the gearshift (it is an automatic, but I guess it can be switched into a clutchless manual mode), I went into the hotel (where we picked up the car) to see if they had a road map. No such luck. We just got a little, tiny map of Izmir and one of Turkey, with no road names on it. Luckily, like I stated earlier, the road signs are good. When the hotel doorman
Shay's cats
The vet made a house call to sedate, shave and vaccinate the cats. saw Shay shifting in and out of reverse a bunch of times, he went over and assisted her in figuring out the gear shift (she was the only one driving, since I had sustained a head injury and she was not confident in my ability to operate a motor vehicle). Once we got out of the parking lot, we went to fill up the tank (they deliver it empty here) and head out of Izmir. Getting out of Izmir turned out to be the most difficult part of our journey.
After we made it out of the city, it was smooth sailing. We got to Ephesus within a couple of hours, did our obligitory tour of a carpet shop😉 and ventured through the ancient ruins. The crowds were small so it was a nice day. A little warm though. I wish I had worn shorts instead of jeans. We rented the self-guided audio tour, which was ok. Since it was only 5YTL (about $4), it was worth it.
Once we left Ephesus, we went to the wine town of Sirince to have lunch/dinner. We picked a restaurant out of our Lonely Planet guide book (hopefully it wasn't just
recommended because the waiter had sex with the writher😉 and ordered some cheese stuffed mushrooms to split. We also had some bread and this pepper spread that is delicious. Our bill was only 11YTL (about $9). We then walked around town, admiring all the dogs sleeping in the roads, and looked at some of the little wares for sale. It is a quaint little touristy wine town, not unlike Napa or Sonoma, just more run down.
Around 4pm we started off to Pamukkele. The town was virtually deserted and the hotel and restaurant owners stand outside and try to convince you to stay/eat there. It gets kind of old after awhile. It is like that in a lot of places here. They are pretty aggressive in trying to get your business. We stayed at the Artemis Yoruk Hotel in the center of town. Since they had a lot of vacancy, we got a huge room with a double bed and three twin beds. The room was pretty worn and smelled kind of musty. The couple that ran the hotel, a Turkish guy and his Aussie girlfriend, were very hospitable. We talked to them at length over breakfast (complimatary and
delicious) the next day. After dropping our stuff off in the room, we walked around town (nothing much to see there) until we were tired of being solicited, then we decided to head over to the next town where some of my daughter's friends from work were staying (they went on a guided tour, so they had different..much nicer...accomodations) and crash their hotel thermal pools for the evening. We probably could have crashed their (included in their tour) dinner as well, but we didn't want to push it. The thermal pools were so nice and relaxing. There was even all this mud at the bottom to rub on our skin. The pools were virtually empty, only about 5 others in them, and they overlooked the hotel swimming pool. It was really a great place to chill. I think we spent about an hour and a half in the thermals then showered (our hotel used solar water heaters, so it would have cold water in the morning) in the locker room...yeah, hot water 😊 It was great, all the benefits of the fancy hotel without the price tag. We said goodbye to my daughter's friends and headed back to our modest
digs to sleep.
The next morning we woke up around 930 and went to breakfast. We ended up leaving the hotel around 1100 to go to the Pamukkale Travertines. Most of the travertine areas were empty, so it was really nice walking around and looking down over the city. We also walked around the ruins of Heiropolis, included in our 10YTL admission fee. We had on jeans, once again, and by the time we left Pamukkale, we were hot, hot, hot, so we changed into shorts in the car and headed off to Aphrodisias. The ruins of Aprodisias are way less crowded and in better shape (more organized) than Ephesus. They are also a lot further off the beaten path. Specifically, 30km down a two lane road filled with tractors and horse pulled carts. We even saw 3 teenage, emo looking boys, riding (after hitchhiking and getting picked up) on a tractor, with a farmer. It was too funny.
Once arriving in Aphrodisias we parked and caught our tractor pulled trailer shuttle to the park. The ruins were reconstructed well and we were practically the only people there. We took the advice of our guide bood and went
Driving in Turkey
Shay, driving for the first time in 8 months, in Turkey, one of the most dangerous countries to drive. in the opposite direction of the arrowed path. It was a great day among the ruins of Aphrodisias. We ended up running into Shay's friends on the tour (who knew they were going to do Aphrodisias) near the end of our ruins exploration.
After leaving Aprhodisias, we took the scenic route out of there toward Izmir. It reminded me a lot of California, only dirtier. We stopped in a little town to see if Shay could find some tomato soup. Turkish tomato soup is apparently to die for. Unfortunately, it was dinner time and soup was not served for dinner. Only lunch. It was fun walking around the little town and being the center of attention. They are not used to seeing two females in shorts and Shay had on a spagetting strap tank. Some of the teenage boys would say "hi" and giggle. We went into one store to get a soda and a guy shows up out of nowhere, telling us if we need help, he speaks English (he learned in school, then worked in Marmaris...a touristy beach town) and he could help us. There were gypsy ladies on the street selling vegetables and lots and lots
of men hanging around everywhere...the cafe's, out on the street, at tables on the sidewalks (playing backgammon). There were hardly any women about. This is also common in the small villages. It seems the women usually socialize at home and the men are out and about. Needless to say, we got a lot of stares, but it seemed good natured.
Once we got back on the road, we saw a couple hitchhiking and decided to pick them up. They turned out to be college students in Izmir. Both the boy and the girl were chemical engineering majors. He just graduated and could only find a job in a DVD store. There are few jobs in Turkey for educated people and it is very difficult for Turks to find employment outside of Turkey. Probably the visa requirements. They were very nice and said they have been hitchhiking for 6 years now. They said it was easy to get rides and when the want to go somewhere (in this case down to the coast to go camping), the just get with friends, split up and start thumbing. They turn it into a competition. When they got in the car, I asked
Ruins of Ephesus
From the top entrance. Ephesus, Turkey them if they like Madonna (it was the only music we had...a cd that was in the car when we got it). They said they did like Madonna, but his favorite band was Linkin Park. I told him my son LOVED Linkin Park and was going to a show soon. We enjoyed talking to them for the next hour it took to get back home.
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Raf Jah
non-member comment
Brilliant....
I am a turk, reading your blog in Tanzania (where I work). Your stories are a brilliantly truthfull travellers' view of Turkey. Your photos are really nice. (and the shiner in funny). I even doubled back through your blog to skim the US stuff too. Very nice. Very readable. Brilliant stuff, keep going! Raf