Closed for Tourism: Turkey Part III

All I wanted was some warm weather, a nice ocean breeze and at least a couple other people around to interact with and not feel as if the only vacationer. Well, apparently, this is a bit of a tall order for Western Turkey in the month of Dec/Jan. After my pleasant one hour flight I arrived in an ultra modern city by Turkey standards. Izmir is the third largest city and a massive sprawl of development all along and around the waterways. Being a big city with no historical value and bazaars such as Istanbul, the only real way to enjoy this city as a tourist would have been to connect with a local, which was the idea. An old friend from grad school lives in Izmir with her husband and of course with my luck the in-laws arrived for the holiday break just as I did so I was unable to connect at all with her. She was nice enough to arrange for a very sterile, hotel located walking distance from the walking plaza full of bars and cafes which for my one night stand in the city proved convenient. I spent my 8 hours there walking km after km along the water absorbing the sun and slightly warmer temperatures. The city was full of congestion and people busy about their work day as you could see preparations being made for a large New Years celebration. The original plan was to stay in the city and ring in the New Year with my friend at an overpriced club but I had seen all there was to see in the half day and full night out. For the evening I was able to find a local cafe with a great band imitating Mic Jagger and an incredible guitarist giving Jimi Hendrix a run for his money. Love being able to appreciate the energy of live music over the more mainstream DJ spin. The only other item worth noting was that as the city also prepared for New Years, they also made preparations for Bayrum and I captured a reluctant sheep being dragged by his owner to eminent doom several days later. None the less it was pretty entertaining to watch this guy try to get the sheep to cooperate for the walk home.








So packing up my bag once again I cabbed it out to massive bus terminal to purchase a short distance bus ticket to Selcuk, where Ephesus is located. At least here there would be several days worth of toppled rock and ruins to play around on, regardless of any other tourists or locals. As I stood in front of slot #5 for what I assumed would be the standard large bus to arrive, a micro bus able to hold maybe 15 skidded into the slot as people dove for the seats and filled the bus faster than a circus car. With my arm still slinged I was not about to compete and guessed I would have to wait another hour for the next but the driver took my bag and was able to drag a bum out from one of the seats so I could squeeze into the van. A pretty semi-coastal drive dropped me off in a very quaint, active small community with pretty hills and ruins surrounding the city. Being Saturday the market was in a full, colorful swing surrounded by trees dripping of the local mandarin fruit. Not to mention the quality of produce. I went around and sampled all types of new interesting and fresh food. Yummie!








Ironic that this was the only town I really researched to find a place to stay so I did the 5 minute walk up the hill from the center to find that the very nice, traditional guest house was full (what??? there are other tourists here???) Luckily, my backup hostel was just down the street and offered a great little baclonied room for 15 euro/night. Including a great breakfast (non Turkish), a wonderful common area where we all partook in a family style New Years Eve BBQ Chicken meal and were able to use free internet or watch any one of a hundred videos. Again there was only a couple other guests here but it was nice to interact with other travelers before heading out to check out the town, mosques, and little cafes. It was nice since everything was in walking distance, much warmer and the locals were very friendly. My first day tour included the St Paul Fort/Cathedral (yes THE St Paul who actually tended to Mary in this exact town after Jesus's crucifixion and until her death), the Ephesus Museum full of fantastic artifacts that were excavated from the site, Aphrodite's massive temple (only one pillar left) and then one of the oldest mosques in the region. Wandering about these magnificent monuments to history is the ONE time to really appreciate no other tourists and to recast what it might have been like back in the days...





When not touring I was enjoying the local hammam (Turkish bath house) reading in the lounge, grabbing some nice local fare and having a drink with other travelers all enjoying the local fruit wines (name a fruit, they have the wine). New Years was uneventful since the town was basically closed but awake enough to hear the automatic gunfire around town. For my second day I spend most of it in Ephesus. One of the 4 great Roman cities this place was massive and hard to imagine the magnitude of what it must have been like in its prime. Of course since all that is basically left are rocks, the day was relatively uneventful yet very peaceful. Beautiful weather and very few crowds completed a picture perfect day.









And finally onto my final destination, the resort town of Bodrum. Known for its off the hook nightlife, beautiful city beaches, boat cruises to Greece and hundreds of small islands and an impressive fortress right in the middle of town. Well, it was all this, except it was closed. My arrival on New Years day was promising since the hot sun had drawn out all the recovering locals to the street cafes to soak up the sun outside and wish all their friends a Happy Bayrum (coincidence that it feel on New Years). After taking 3 different buses I arrived in this pretty town to walk the pedestrian area in search of lodging. Little did I know everyone was vacating the town so I had no problem finding a basic room with balcony right on the beach in the main area for again 15 euro/night. Unfortunately that afternoon was the only time I was to absorb a setting sun over the water as I basked in delight watching the locals frolic below while I enjoyed my book (Thomas Freedman's The World is Flat--very interesting read).

This old city area had cafe after bar after club after restaurant and must go off on-season. But as the evening approached and people left town, most of the shops pulled their shutters for the next 4 days. Little did I know I was about to enter Ground Hog Day. For the Bayrum most everything closed, very limited transportation and to top it off we got cold rains and massive winds that forced me from cafe to cafe to stay warm and progress through a 500 page novel at lightening speed. Fortunately I had some great seafood meals, was able to walk about the town and harbor repetitively and on my last night meet a very nice Brit who was purchasing a retirement home in the area (now there is an idea). On day 5 I was finally able to get a flight out and instead of returning to Istanbul to figure out my last 3 days worth of lodging and activities, my previous 2 weeks of travel had worn me thin and very happy to pay the ticket change fee to spend only 3 hours in the Istanbul airport before flying to Pristina. I will admit that it was nice to get rid of my extra Turkish lira on a massively overpriced tall decaf soy latte double shot vanilla. This part of the world does not believe in decaf so I have to take it when I can get it.





So, there it is. A little short to report on the details towards the end since there just weren't any. As I mentioned in chapter one, this will definitely require an on-season visit with some friends to just appreciate being in one place to rest. Which is exactly what I did for the 3 day weekend I had locked inside my apartment in Pristina since all my other expat friends were still on holiday. You could pleasantly feel the emptiness of the town and this space allowed for a ton of laundry, allot of writing, grocery shopping and trying to get back into studying Albanian. This place certainly has its issue but it was very nice to return 'home' and start to get back into the groove for a New Year.


HAPPY 2007!!!

Welcome to the Moon

It seemed to make the most sense. A direct overnight bus for $30 to take me from my hotel in Istanbul to the local bus terminal in Goreme 5 minutes away from my new guest house. I didn't factor in a less than comfortable bus, screaming TV movies, keeping the lights on, a huge snow storm with stop and go traffic, having a paranoid reaction to my sleeping pill, catching a cold and trying to swallow with a throat on fire, along with rest stops every 3 hours. 15 hours later totally strung out I was standing alone with no other tourist and no local tour operators or hotel recruiters trying to capture my tourist dollars. It was too (*&#@!*& cold for anyone to be outside to get my business. The local guest house owner arrived after a call to drive me back to the coolest looking cave Inn that was literally carved into the limestone rock formations Cappadocia is famous for. It reminded me of other bizarre natural geographic wonders such as Cooper Peddie in Australia, the Badlands in the US and Meteora in Greece. The sub artic winds and shallow snow covering added to the mystical nature of the place but seriously pushed my tolerance for being unconfortable. With my cold full on I could not get warm. Even in my cave room with heating in the floor I had to keep a cap on and could mildly see my breath all the time. The windows were encased in ice and each room was connected by walking outside and around the rocks to make my way even down to the main reception area for meals and conversation (with the owner). There were no other guests since they had obviously read some tour book I hadn't saying go somewhere else warmer.





Ok, enough bitching. I was there so decided to make the most of it for the 2 days I was going to stay. I could only handle 2 cold nights as well and therefore made arrangement to leave that region the only way acceptable, by plane. I refused to get back on another bus to head back to the coast so literally decided to fly out to Izmir since it was the only other city I could go direct aside from heading back to Istanbul.





So with no sleep behind me I spent the afternoon walking the local town (deserted) and then up to the Open-air museum which allowed you to climb in, out and around the old homes and churches that ancient civilizations had carved into the rock formations. Some very impressive engineering feats I must say. Since a great deal of the other worth while sites were a close driving distance from where I stayed, I arranged to spend the following day on a tour with 3 other Asians to visit Pigeon valley, an underground city, Love Valley (guess which photo is of this) Mushroom Rock and a couple other sites. All and all worth the visit and definately a place that would kick ass for outdoor adventure with incredible mountain biking, baloon rides, jeep trips and just general hiking. Heard in the summer it is usually so hot many sleep out doors to cool down in the evening air. Speaking of which my evenings there involved a home cooked meal at the Inn and me hanging out in my warmer Turkish bathroom or wrapping myself under a ton of blankets waiting for the morning sun to thaw a bit of the crusted ice.








My long trip in was rewarded by a quick flight out to Izmir on the coast which was going be 3 days of hanging back in the third largest Turkish city, celebrating New Years Eve at a club and spending a great deal of time with a grad school friend who lived there. As it turned out the city has only one tourist site, is pretty large and confusing to navigate, had only large impersonal expensive hotels to stay and my friend was unsable to visit since her in-laws showed up instead. So I only stuck out this segment for a day before fleeing down the cost to Ephesus, a worthwhile Roman adventure (stay tuned)...