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We woke up quite early on Tuesday in order to make our 7:00 ferry from Istanbul to Bandirma. Ali met us outside the police house at 5:45 in order to escort us to the dock. We got onto the ship and settled in for the 2 hour sailing across the Sea of Marmara.
We had set Canakkale as our destination for the evening. Canakkale is only a few km from the ancient city of Troy and was the setting for a movie bearing the same name. In fact the horse built for that movie is displayed in the town centre.
We reached Canakkale at about noon, much earlier than we had anticipated. Over lunch we decided to skip Canakkale and head to our next destination at Ayvalik. On the way we stopped at the ancient city of Troy which is listed as a Unesco world heritage site. Although the history is fascinating, we were a little disappointed with the site itself and the admission price of 10 liras per person. A few hours after we left there, my motorcycle’s chain came off the sprockets, right in front of a fuel station. We called Ali and asked if he would
translate what our dilemma was. Within about 15 minutes, three men had pulled up to the bike and were fixing it, a process that took them about 15 min. After giving them a tip, we were off again.
We rode to Ayvalik and overnighted there without much fanfare. In fact we stayed in a town called Alibey, which is actually a tiny Island. The town seemed pretty cool and laidback but unfortunately our visit there was marred by rain and we rode off first thing in the morning towards Selcuk. Along the way we passed through Izmir, a city of a few million on the Aegean Cost. As with every large city here, it is next to impossible for foreigners to navigate through. While we were stopped at an Opet gas station (my favourite brand of gas in Turkey), a “taksi” driver walked up to us and asked if we needed help. When told we wanted to get to the highway to Selcuk, he told us to follow him and assured us he wanted no money for it.
We followed for about 20 minutes and sure enough he got us to the highway. We did give him a
20 lira tip as he had gone a fair bit out of his way.
We got rained on a little more and then the sky cleared up as we pulled into Selcuk. We found the Anzac Guesthouse without any problems in this community of 30,000. The place is very quaint and mostly inhabited by backpackers and budget travellers. We met a few Aussies and Canadians who we ended up having dinner with.
Selcuk is 3 km from the ruins of Ephesus, a city founded more than 3,000 years ago and where the apostle John and Virgin Mary are believed to have lived after the death of Christ. The site is spectacular, the amount of artefacts that have been discovered as well as buildings are just unbelievable. It took us a couple of hours to walk through while listening to our self guided tour headsets. We also had to negotiate our way around the throngs of bus tours that were happening all around us.
We've made a few changes to our itinerary over the next few days. Friday we leave Selcuk for Bodrum and Saturday we head to Gocek. On Sunday we should return to Antalya and hopefully
leave for the Syrian border Sunday night or Monday morning.
We'd like to take a moment to express our deepest thanks to our new friend Ali in Istanbul. To say that he gave us a hand on this trip would be the understatement of the century; Ali made the trip what it was for us and continues to do so as he checks in on us from time to time via the cell phone. We can only hope to one day have the opportunity and privilege of repaying the kindness and generosity that you have shown to us. You have our most heartfelt gratitude...
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AHS 'the TURK' ILERI
non-member comment
...that's what it's all about, Bro.
but hey, now you guys have this old geezer blushing whilst he takes a deep bow in reverence to the comment offered! on to the more mundane and trivial matters of the journey...U probably got my email w/ info re: ferry to Datcha etc?