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| An Odyssey through Turkey - July 12, 2006 | | Date Created: Jul 12, 2006, 03:54 PM |
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Above photo: Prae stands at the center of the Greek amphitheater in the ruins at Hieropolis.
The first week of July, Prae and I traveled throughout western Turkey, ending our Odyssey in Istanbul in time for the wedding reception of good U.S. friends, Cameron and Nazan Gillie. I had the honor of being Cameron’s best man at his wedding on a beach in Florida in January, and the long-standing plans for the reception in Nazan’s native Istanbul finally came to fruition on July 9. Here’s a report of our travels. |
 Right photo: The Mediterranean beach that separates the town of Olympos from Cirali would appear very much like the shore of Lake Michigan, if it weren't for the mountains.
We arrived in Antalya on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey the afternoon of July 2 and picked up our rental car, a silver Hyundai Accent sedan. We drove the 50 miles or so from Antalya on the coast down to the tiny town of Cirali. The drive was on a twisting, turning coastal highway that went through a couple of tunnels and over mountains that are covered in snow until May, when some people go to the region for skiing and beach holidays. Cirali is made up of two dozen or so beach hotels and a pebbly beach that looks more like the shores of Lake Michigan than the Mediterranean. |
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Above photo: Greek ruins separate the town of Olympos from the beach.
Down the beach about a mile from Cirali are the ruins of the town of Olympos, which we explored a little, even on little sleep from flying all night. We then walked back to our hotel via the beach, stopping at a beachfront restaurant for one of the freshest meals I've ever eaten. |
 Left photo: Look! 7:30 p.m. and still light out!
It was then we discovered that Turkey has the best vine-ripened tomatoes on the face of the earth. As impressed as Prae was with the food, she couldn't get over the fact it was 8 p.m. and still light out. Throughout the course of the trip, she had me take pictures of her with her watch held up to show how light it was in this foreign land when it should have been dark. Despite her time spent in Australia, she had never before been so far from the Equator and had never realized the difference in the seasonal swings of daylight. It was wonderful to marvel at this through her eyes. |
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Above photo: Although the flames of Olympos may look like mere campfires, they really are amazing when you consider that they are a freak of nature.
After dinner we drove a couple of miles up Mount Olympos to a path that leads to a sight that had been on my life's to-do list: the Chimaera of Olympos. These are natural flames that shoot out from the side of the mountain and have done so since ancient times. Even now, modern science cannot fully explain them or determine the exact nature of the gas that is emitted. It is about a mile walk in the dark straight up the side of the mountain, and we were very lucky in our timing, as there were maybe only 12 others there -- including two hippies playing the mouth harp and cooking Vienna sausages over one of the flames. (What the hell, might as well put them to use: I lit a cigarette off one of them!) |
 Right photo: I make use of the Chimaera.
If the flames were not natural, they would be something straight out of Disney World. They appear almost like a gas fireplace in about six or eight places, constantly and quietly burning and flickering from the bare rock. It was the silence, I guess that was most impressive. Somehow it seems as if flames are leaping out of the earth for no apparent reason, they should come with some roaring sound effect. I can only imagine how Hollywood would depict them in Dolby Surround Sound. |
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Above photo: Prae looks on, while two men cook Vienna sausages on the flames of Olympos.
It was upon seeing the flames I wished I remembered my Edith Hamilton better, but it was easy to see how the ancients could have come up with about any mythological story surrounding Olympos with such a sight. As far as natural wonders go, this has to be the most unique I’ve seen, and as small as the flames were, I would put them on par with the Northern Lights as far as their ability to inspire awe. You know, you can go to waterfall after waterfall, and each may be more spectacular than the rest, but the water’s not doing anything you wouldn’t expect it to do; it’s falling, after all. You just don’t expect a mountain to spontaneously ignite, however.
On our way down we passed maybe 100 people from tour groups, and we were glad our timing had missed them and we'd experienced the flames in their sacred silence.
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Above photo: We drive through the mountains to Pammukale.
I knew we had packed in a busy itinerary, and so the next day we hit the road for Pamukkale, which is about 200 miles northeast of Cirali. The roads of Turkey are not great, but they are not horrible either -- mainly two lanes, fairly wide, and three lanes when going uphill. The drivers are not as bad or as crazy as I expected, and so I'd say we did not even have any close calls. |
 Left photo: The driving was not as dangerous as I'd steeled myself for.
I had read with trepidation some facts about Turkish driving before going. There is a Turkey specific Web site called www.turkeytravelplanner.com that was very useful, and I discovered a general travel site that is really fantastic called www.virtualtourist.com. This site takes submissions from readers and chops them up by very specific category. So, I’d read all the “dangers of Turkey” categories, and driving was definiitely among them, as was street crime and dangers to women travelers. Living in Thailand gives you a false sense of security sometimes when you can really blunder about daily with no concern of having anything bad happen to you (if you don’t drive and if you be careful crossing the road!). I will say, however, that outside of the area surrounding Istanbul did not seem to have unusually crazy traffic or overly dangerous roads. And as far as guarding against pickpockets and hanging on to camera gear all the time, which I’d do in New York, Turkey overall didn’t seem any less safe than anywhere else in the world. |
 Right photo: Signs were not often confusing, Although we did get stuck in one town driving around in circles for a half hour.
On our way north from Antalya, we found where all the tomatoes are grown -- in covered greenhouses along the road. Prae had to stop to have her photo taken with the tomatoes growing on the plants. This became a recurring theme as we headed through cherry country and strawberry country. Oh yes, and olive and peach country as well. Grape vines too. For lunch, we would steal hard-boiled eggs from our hotel's free breakfast in the morning and then supplement those with fruit from roadside stands and then have a roadside picnic. (Look out for a complete photo album below of Prae with fruits, vegetables and food.) |
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| Above photo: We stop for a roadside lunch and a quick photo. |
 Right photo: Prae drinks tea while we fill up at a gas station.
Fuel prices were horrendous -- almost US$100 to fill up that tiny Hyundai! But a fill-up was full service and did come with a free cup of Turkish tea. |
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| Above photo: On the way to Pammukale, we came into an area of great expansive plains. |
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Above photo: The travertine pools of Pammukale glow aqua blue overloooking a huge valley.
We made it to Pamukkale, which is known for its travertine pools that are terraced down the side of a mountain from which a mineral spring bubbles, covering everything with a calcereous white substance.
On the way up the mountain, we witnessed a new type of sales agent for hotels. We passed through the little town, and men came running out, waving our car down and motioning as if we had a flat tire. Moreover, a couple of men immediately jumped on motorbikes and zoomed in front of us, as if trying to pull us over like traffic police. I had heard such tactics might be used to attempt to get us to stay in local hotels, and so I determined that I would simply run them over if they didn’t quit. Their tactics had the effect of prompting us to stay in a completely different town where they were less agressive, and I certainly recommend that no one traveling to Turkey ever stay in the town of Pammukale to avert the spread of such behavior. It is wrong and puts a bad taste in one’s mouth about the area. |
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| Above photo: The main street of Hieropolis was in use for more than 1,000 years. |
 Left photo: In a spitting rain, which drove away most others, we toured Hieropolis. |
Pammukkale looks almost as if the mountain is covered in snow and not the hot mineral water of the spring around which the Greek town of Hieropolis was built two millennia ago.
Below photo: A mineral spring has coated the entire top of the mountain. While it may look like snow, it feels like the bottom of a swimming pool. |
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 Right photo: An outlet of the hot spring provides a mineral bath at the hotel where we stayed. The mineral deposits are rust colored and then bleach white with age.
An amphitheater overlooks the surreal white pools stepping down the mountainside, and we explored this in spitting rain, admiring a view over a highland valley surrounded by mountains as far as 20 miles away. At the base of the ruins, there is a tour bus parking lot and a public "Antique Pool," in which tourists can bathe in the mineral water. We opted not for this, but we did stay at an awful touristy all-inclusive hotel in a nearby town that I equated to a land-locked cruise ship. Oh, it was terrible, but it was 9 p.m., and we needed both dinner and a place to stay, and it had its own mineral pool in which we took a smelly muddy dip. From our room, we could hear the evening's entertainment, a band that stopped when the local mosque called evening prayers and then resumed again immediately afterward. Prae wondered if we should have gone down to see if the band members were praying. We fell asleep before the subsequent belly dancing show. |
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| Above photo: A mosque sits just off the middle of town near Pammukale, and next to it is a fountain whose source comes from the mineral spring. |
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| Above photo: Prae sits to have tea with some locals in a town between Pammukale and Denzili. |
 Right photo: The Virgin Mary supposedly spent her last years in this house, which is now considered sacred by both Christians and Muslims.
Our next day took us first to the house in which the Virgin Mary supposedly spent her last days. Apparently a stigmatized nun in Germany in the 1800s had a vision about the house being somewhere in Turkey, and some people set out to find it. Lo and behold, they came across exactly what she had described. Now it's holy ground for both Christians and Muslims, who interestingly hold the Virgin Mary in high regard as well for reasons that escape -- and mystify -- me. If nothing else, it's about as serene a spot as one could hope to spend her final days, and the holy water spring that happened to be right there would, I'm sure, have made her washing all the easier. |
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Above photo: Ephesus is an amazing assortment of Greek and Roman ruins. Here, the facade of the library still stands.
We went on to nearby Ephesus, was was a Greek then Roman town, and the ruins and excavations there are really spectacular. The excavated terrace homes are actually more impressive than the ruins at Pompeii, although I could have drawn this conclusion simply from the fact I wasn't there in December, in pouring rain, with a tour group, looking for Mom, who I'd thought had gotten lost. Objectively speaking, however, the residences' wall paintings and mosaics were every bit if not more impressive than at Pompeii. And then, of course, there was all the Greek stuff in addition to it. |
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| Above photo: The ruins of Ephesus are strung out over more than a mile. |
 Right photo: Another view of the library.
Below photo: Not one, but two amphitheaters could be found for entertainment in Ephesus. |
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Above photo: Just a column and a half remain of the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
We shrugged at nearby the Temple of Artemis for a good five minutes as we tried to shake off souvenir salesmen without much success. It probably was grand enough at one time to be one of the seven ancient wonders. Now, unfortunately, it's just a wonder that enough people buy from the vendors that their sales tactics work. (I bought a book and two Turkish rug bookmarks, myself.) What would Artemis have thought? |
 Right photo: We spotted dozens of outdoors car washes like this one in Selcuk throughout our travels. The water just constantly spurts out for anyone who wants to drive under. The spots left by the water made the car seem dirtier than before, however.
Below photo: The Hotel Kalehan in Selcuk was everything I'd read it to be. Very peaceful with a rose garden and excellent food. |
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| We stayed that night in the nearby town of Selcuk at a wonderful little inn that was built very simply to look old but was really only 20 years old or so. It had a lovely rose garden and a great restaurant. We woke up the next morning to temperatures in the 60s and the smell of jasmine and roses outside our window. |
 Right photo: Prae peers down from a reproduction of the Trojan Horse.
We had a long haul that day and had to skip ruins at Bergama to make it to Troy before it closed. The Troy of Priam and "Illiad" -- or the movie, "Troy," if you prefer -- we had to remind ourselves, was a 1,500 years older than the Greek ruins we'd seen at Ephesus the previous day. |
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Above photo: The Trojan horse greets visitors before the archaeological site.
It is little more than a jumble of rocks and excavations. But to see its location, and to look down from the hill and see a huge plain stretch before us maybe 3 miles to the Agean, was pretty amazing. It is much farther inland that I would have expected. And we climbed up and snapped photos in the Trojan horse they built out front too. We happened to stop at one of the few souvenir stands near Troy and got to talking with the owner. I bought a guidebook that was written by his brother, and then the brother happened to show up, and we gained a better understanding of the rockpile we had just seen. |
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Above photo: The view from Troy is impressive, and it is much farther inland than I would have expected.
Prae has no familiarity whatsoever with Western history or Greek mythology, and so she was going by simply what she knows of the movie. The Thai education system doesn't get into the Western canon of literature, but then again, what do I know of Thai literature? (I'm learning, incidentally.) She found all this interesting, though -- at least I hope. |
 Right photo: Aboard the ferry, we cross the Dardanelles to Europe.
We pressed on to the city of Canukkale, where we decided to go ahead and make the ferry crossing of the famed Dardanelles, across to the Gallipoli Peninsula. The Dardanelles is a narrow strip of water leading from the Agean to the Sea of Marmara then on to the Bosphorus and then the Black Sea. Militarily is has always been of strategic importance because it provides a year-round route to supply northeastern Europe and southwestern Asia. |
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| Above photo: A boat leaves the harbor of Cannukale on the Asian side of the Dardanelles. |
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| Above photo: Prae stands on the Agean shore after her first night in Europe. |
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Above photo: Our hotel on the Gallipoli Peninsula was on the beach and surrounded by sunflower fields.
We found a great hotel right on the beach and surrounded by sunflower fields. Prae spent her first night ever in Europe and was excited about that, and we got up the next day to see the battlefield memorials of Gallipoli. This is a subject of World War I about which I knew not anything more than the movie "Gallipoli" and the words "the charge of the Light Brigade." It's a site of pilgrimage for New Zealanders and Aussies, much the way Normandy is for Americans. Learning more about the battle was interesting, and there's something I find very moving about standing amidst war cemeteries -- always, it seems, on high, desolate, wind-blown hills -- and considering how different and how similar the views must have once been from those hills. One thing that impressed me -- and an Aussie may tell me I'm wrong in this impression -- is that the Turks seemed to do a fairly equal job expressing the stories of both sides. |
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| Above photo: At Lone Pine, a cemetery marks a World War I battlefield site. |
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| Above photo: Much of the Gallipoli Peninsula is now a national park, leaving the battlefields and unmarked graves to nature. |
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Left photo: The Hotel Nena was a beautiful little hotel, close to everything. I would not, however, ever recommend eating dinner there.
We then high-tailed it to Istanbul in about five hours, dumping the car as quickly as we could at the airport. I did not want to drive in that traffic! We took a taxi into the city to our hotel, which again was a great little place, very much like the hotel Mom and I stayed in in Rome -- they could have been sister hotels. It was less than a mile to all the major sights of Istanbul. |
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Above photo: Prae and I stand on the Asian side of Istanbul with the Bosphorus behind us.
Upon our arrival we ran into Cameron, Clint and his wife Suzanne. Clint is a former Fort Myers News-Press photographer and a friend of Cameron’s who was there to shoot the wedding reception. |
 Left photo: Cameron and Prae wait for the ferry back to the European side of Istanbul after dinner.
We checked in quickly and then hopped on a streetcar down to the ferry across the Bosphorus to find a place on the Asian side for dinner. We all joked that once we got across to Asia, everyone would look like Prae, and we'd probably find nothing but Thai restaurants. We did not, of course, but we did find a restaurant that overlooked the Bosphorus, which I could not look at without thinking of Richard Halliburton swimming across it. |
 Right photo: Prae looks at Turkish teacups in the Grand Bazaar.
The next day we set out for the Grand Bazaar, which is as interesting as it is annoying for its shopkeepers. It is all covered and actually very clean, complete with LCD TVs in the main streets giving constant news updates. The floors are aged marble -- after all, this market is 1,000 years old. It is huge, rambling up and down hills and filled less with booths than with tiny storefronts. |
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Above photo: The Grand Bazaar is chockful of Turkish souvenirs as well as knock-off Rolexes and Gucci bags.
None of the prices are marked, and no matter how good your bargaining technique are, you still pay too much for almost everything there. Nazan's brother is both a tour guide and a Meerschaum carver. Meerschaum apparently comes only from Turkey and Tanzania. Sanan Atilla -- Nazan's brother and Cameron’s brother-in-law -- carves wonderful little boxes and napkin rings and other things from the white mineral. We stopped at a store that sells his pieces, and they really were quite striking. |
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Above photo: Inside, the Grand Bazaar is surprisingly clean, filled almost like a mall with shops instead of the more market-like atmosphere I was expecting.
We met up with Nazan and Sanan for lunch, and they took us to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant which was quite good and cheap. Then I proceeded to get on with the second item on my life's to-do list on this trip: shop for a Turkish rug. For the whole story and photos, see a separate entry below. |
 Left photo: The henna hand-painting ceremony begins with Nazan under a red shawl. The idea behind the ceremony, Nazan said, is for a woman's female friends to send her off to her wedding. Sort of the equivalent of a bachelorette party.
That evening, we went to a party at Nazan's family's apartment. It was actually a sort of traditional Muslim bachelorette party, but seeing as they were already married and that Cameron had put his foot down about converting and having a traditional ceremony, everyone was invited. Yet some of the same rituals were conducted. I wish I understood it better, but it's basically known as a henna-painting ceremony. When I was told this, I was thinking of henna painting in the Indian Hindu sense, but this is different. Nazan was led into a blackened room with a red sequined scarf over her head. All the women sang and danced around her and then dabbed henna paste on her palms, which were then covered by red sequined mitts. This henna paste was also dabbed on the palms of other women present. |
 Right photo: The daubing of the henna paste begins.
During this ceremony, I thought back to my recent experience at the week-long Buddhist funeral of Prae's father, and I sort of thought to myself, "What am I doing? Just going around the world on some sort of anthropological tour?" To be honest, the thought of trying to determine what was actually going on in another bizarre ceremony was almost tiring, and I kind of wanted to see something I consider normal as a novelty. |
 Left photo: Surrounded by women relatives and friends, Nazan is the center of attention at her symbolic bahelorette party. |
 Right photo: Prae and Nazan's aunt (I think, sorry if I am wrong; speaking no Turkish, it was hard to keep everyone straight) watch the dancing that ensued. |
 Left photo: Nazan and her father share a moment on the tight dance floor of the living room.
There was lots of dancing afterward, and we had a delicious home-cooked meal of about every traditional Turkish dish you can imagine: eggplant in about any form you can think of; dolmas, which are rolled grape leave containing in this case currants, rice and nuts; kofte, which is a kind of meatball, in this case with tomato and mashed potato on top; bulgur wheat in yoghurt; julienned carrots in yoghurt; stuffed zucchini; baclava; and who knows what else. |
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| Above photo: Prae decides to go native with the addition of a black shawl that comes from the Black Sea region and has crystals sewn on as trim. |
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Above photo: The Blue Mosque, as seen from the rooftop of our hotel, sits near the Bosphorus.
Saturday I did some sight-seeing with the others while Prae napped. In total, I wound up not seeing as many sights as I'd hoped, but I did get to the Blue Mosque, the sultan's palace and a place called Aya Sofya, which was a Byzantine church turned into a mosque and later turned into a museum. Istanbul has more mosques that Bangkok has wats, and at prayer-calling times, it can be a battle of the imams. There’s one little mosque right next to the huge Blue Mosque that called out prayers at the same times, yet the voice competed with that of the imam at the Blue Mosque, and I wondered how this mosque fared fund-raising-wise when it held a rummage sale or bake sale in competition with its neighbor. |
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| Above photo: The interior of Aya Sofia was redone when the Byzantine church was converted to a mosque. Later it became a museum, and now some of those Islamic touches have been removed to reveal the Christian imagery beneath. It's an interesting mix of the two religions. |
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| Above photo: From Topkape Palace, the Bosphorus appears wide and busy, and I was impressed by Richard Halliburton's stamina and courage to swim across. I'll stick with the ferry. |
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| Above photo: Street cars make it easy to get around Istanbul. |
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| Above photo: Inside the Blue Mosque, its blue decor finally explains its name. |
 Left photo: Prae and Sonja Bjelland, who is a former Naples Daily News reporter and came for Cameron's wedding, cover their heads after just having toured the Blue Mosque. |
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| Above photo: A moon rises over the Blue Mosque. |
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Above photo: We all head together to see a Whirling Dervish show.
Saturday evening, we met up to go see a Whirling Dervish performance, which actually, I learned should be called a ceremony, because Whirling Dervishes are part of some presumably Islamic cult. |
 Left photo: Cameron clocked the whilring at 70 RPM.
They play some really beautiful music and then the whirlers came out, very solemn-like, with sort of that far-off expression and methodical movement of people in a trance. Then they started whirling. Cameron timed them They'd go about seven minutes at a time, spinning at about 70 RPM. That's got to make you dizzy, but not them. |
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| Above photo: The Dervishes would whirl for as long as seven minutes at a time. |
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Above photo: During their whirling, their expressions were trance-like, although I do not know if that comes from some real trance or just being very dizzy.
They would pause for another solemn march around the room and a bow to a red sheepskin on what was called the equatorial line, and then they start whirling again. Pretty strange. We clapped at the end, but I am not sure if that's like a Muslim clapping at the end of a homily, and so we sort of shuffled out quietly, not really knowing how to act. I don’t think they recruited any dervishes in us, however.
We went on to have a fateful meal on the roof of the hotel, which overlooked the Bosphorus and the Blue Mosque. Great view, but the meal was to take three of us out about 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning. It was the second worst food poisoning I'd ever had, and I stayed firmly on my spinning bed until it was time to go to the wedding reception Sunday night. Wonderful Prae stayed with me through every excruciating minute of it, helping me try to get the fever down and get rehydrated before Cameron's big evening. I was the worst hit, but poor Cameron wasn't far behind me. |
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Above photo: Prae has a good laugh at the condition of the groom. I would have laughed too, but I was worse off.
It is tradition for the bride and groom and family to traipse all over Istanbul to have their photos taken at major site in their wedding attire. And recovering Cameron had to do that while I caught three more hours of bed time. When we arrived at the site of the reception -- it was once a sultan's hunting lodge now in a city park -- we found Cameron lying down on a Louis XIV (or XVI?) sofa in this grandiose room with 20-foot ceilings, parquet floors, a Venetian mirror and chandelier. I collapsed in a chair next to him just from the taxi ride over from the hotel. |
 Left photo: Nazan awaits her and Cameron's appearance to the guests as bride and groom.
The reception was identical to a wedding reception as we are familiar with it, except guests staple money to a cloth around the bride and groom's necks -- a tradition I hope is employed in my culture before my own wedding day. We sat across from friends or relatives who couldn't figure out why the fussy Americans wouldn't eat anything but bread and water, and then I sneaked off to that sofa in the opulent room. |
 Right photo: The bride and groom have their first dance. To my knowledge, it was Cameron's first dance ever.
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Monday was our last day to make all our purchases, and I'd pretty much decided on a little marriage rug I'd seen the first day, but we also made a stop at the spice bazaar. Prae came with me to buy the rug, and she is a phenomenal bargainer. Just as some people are good at small-talk, she comes up with the greatest things to say at bargaining talk. I'm one who says "What's your best price?" "You sure?" "Really?" But she goes into theatrics, and the Turks loved this. First she made sure to tell them she was Thai and not Japanese. She didn't want the rich Japanese price; Thais are poor, they can't afford as much. Then she said it would make her cry all the time if we paid as much as they wanted for that rug. Were the dyes really natural? Because she didn't want them running from all the tears she planned to shed on that rug! Well, she got them down so that she'd be crying out of only one eye, and she'd just have to hold that eye off the edge of that tiny rug -- it was so small, after all, she'd have to aim to get her tears to drip on it! And then she pulled what I always love to see. The deal is done, and she springs it on them: "What have you got for me? He's spending all this money on some scrap of old wool that's going to be wet with my tears! You must have just a little gift for me!"
It wasn't another rug, alas, but it was an interesting tribal weaving that she would wear as a belt. She was great! I can't wait to get her into a Toyota dealership!
So that was pretty much the happy note our trip ended on. I won't go into details about how much we hate Turkish Airways, because that’s a different story and one you will have to find out for yourself if you are ever so unfortunate as to have to fly with them. But we did make it back to Bangkok to make this record of our trip, surprisingly enough.
Below photo: A Russian living in the U.S. took a photo of us at the amphitheater at Hieropolis near Pammukale. We're looking forward to having our photo taken together on many more travels to come. |
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