Malena in Turkey

After spending a number of days lounging around Fethiye, Kate and I decided it was time to leave. It was a nice town, but hard to meet other tourists (although we did meet a few nice ones!) and we’d heard nothing but good things about Olympos (home of the famous treehouses.) So we set off to take a bus to Olympos.

Now, Olympos is only 20 pages ahead of Fethiye in the Lonely Planet, so I sort of thought the busride would be short. Which is silly, because the LP does cover the entire country of Turkey. Of course, a little research let me discover that it was actually a 6 hour bus ride (and the only non-overnight of the trip) so we basically spent most of the day just getting there. Now, another thing hinted at in the Lonely Planet was the fact that the bus didn’t actually stop at Olympos. Instead, it stopped at a restaurant on the side of the road, where you got off and were picked up by another bus that came at irregular intervals and waited until it was full before driving the remaining 15km or so to the treehouses. We were a little apprehensive, but fortunately it all worked out okay (and our getting dropped off on the side of a road in a strange town didn’t happen until later in the trip, lucky us.) Also, another bonus, we met a nice Australian (working in London) named Anne, who we talked to a bit - always nice to talk to someone besides Kate!  (As by this point in the trip we had approximately gone through every possible conversation we could have, about three times. Hehe.) She was also on her way to the treehouses, en route to a Blue Voyage (which, if/when I ever make it back, is on the shortlist.)

Well, after the pretty but otherwise unremarkable busride through seaside terrain (and a number of yachting towns) and the bus transfer, we finally made it to Olympos. All of the tourists decided to stay at the same treehouse, as it was basically the only one with other people there. (There are a number of treehouses to choose from at Olympos.) Now, I feel like I need to clear something up, since people seem very excited by the treehouses. They aren’t big grand structures with multiple levels.  Instead, they’re basically huts in the woods, set off the ground a little. Kate and I got a double, which was basically just a mattress on a wooden floor. But it was cheap! And it included dinner (the price was about 12 dollars.) And supposedly the water was hot.

The plan for the day was to do a little walking around the ruins in the short amount of time we had left before nightfall, and then go on a little tour to see the Chimaera fires after dark. The ruins themselves were picturesque but (fortunately since we didn’t have much time) not very big. However, we also discovered a little beach (we and every other visitor there, of course) so we walked along it for a while.  Afterwards, we returned to the treehouse for the fantastic all-vegetarian) dinner and bus to the flames!

Now, the flames were actually very cool. They are these chemically lit fires that always burn (and have burnt forever, basically) on the slopes of Mount Olympos. Apparently sailors used to be able to see them at night. Also, and this is something I didn’t know until I actually arrived and read the signs, these were the flames used to light the original Olympic torch! How cool is that! The only regret I had was that I didn’t bring any marshmellows to roast over them. Now, one thing disappointed me. The LP described the composition of the gas that lights the flames as “unknown, though it is thought to contain some methane.” Now, I thought it was interesting that there was anything like this still unknown, so I made sure to comment on that to everyone.  Of course, we arrive and there’s a big sign with the chemical composition of the gas down to the nearest hundredth of a percent.  Thanks Lonely Planet, you let me down.

Also of note, on the long hike up to the flames I again fell and again hurt my poor injured right hand. Lucky me. Oh, and I looked like an idiot in front of everyone. Which was great, since it came after the big unknown chemical scandal.

So yeah, the flames were cool - at least I didn’t fall and burn my hand on them! And afterwards we went back to the treehouse and just hung out, chatting with other travellers, eating chips and drinking Turkish wine. Now, if I haven’t mentioned it, there are two kinds of people in Turkey for the eclipse. Science geeks who travel around the world hunting solar eclipses (and immediately recognizable) and, speaking of unknown chemicals, dreadlocked hippies who were here for the Rainbow Festival or some big psy-trance festival (also immediately recognizable.) Apparently the treehouse we’d picked was quite a psy-trance hangout. Hmm, I wonder which group people thought Kate and I were in (ha. ha.) Ah well, it was a fun night - and the next day we made our way to Antalya and from there to Goreme!

On Thursday, our last full day in Fethiye, Kate and I decided to make our way over to the ghost town of Kayakoy. We were both looking forward to this - probably more than we should have been to be honest. After all, this wasn’t an old ghost town like, say… the ones in California. Oh no, in this land of ancient ruins the age of the town we’d be visiting was around 80 years old. That’s right, I was excited about visiting an empty town about half the age of my childhood house.

 Basically, the town of Kayakoy was abandoned after the Turkish War of Independence, when all the people of Greek descent (and practicing Ottoman Christians) moved to Greece, and all the Turkish people living in Greece returned here.  Apparently, there were more people moving out of Turkey than into Turkey, so a number of towns were abandoned.  Then, there were earthquakes and “natural phenomona” that aged the houses, and now it’s a big tourist destination!  And I have lots of pictures, none of them very good, and all of them far to big to actually put up here.  How hard is it to resize pictures, you ask?  Well, right now it’s a pain and I’m working on that.  But on with the blog!

To get there we got to take a dolmus (small bus) from the center of Fethiye. Now this bus was basically awesome, because the driver apparently didn’t understand that you could drive faster than 15mph. So we’re slowly chugging away, cement trucks and tractors and runners are passing us at extremely fast paces, and we’re freezing cold because the bus driver also seemed to like driving with the door open. Fortunately after about 30 minutes of this (and approximately 7.5 miles) the driver sped up to at least 30mph and we drove through… my favorite English resort town ever! Seriously, it’s hideous. All signs in English, no non-British people that I could see in town, restaurants with names like “The Fish and Chips Place” and “English Food Restaurant” and stores called “The Midas Touch” and “Ali Baba Carpets” - ugh. It made me cringe. I guess I shouldn’t be hypocritical because at a lot of the small towns we’ve stayed at (and I’ve really liked) everyone spoke English, tourism is the only reason the town is still around, etc… but this one just seemed different.

Eventually, despite our bus driver’s best efforts, we arrived at the ghost town. It was pretty cool, lots of empty stone buildings - but I was imagining there would be more there to remind you that 80 years ago people were actually living there. Instead, it looked like no one had lived there for hundreds of years. No childrens’ toys left on shaggy lawns, no rusted bikes lacking drivers, etc. I guess since lots of tourists come through anything like that would have been picked over long ago. So we walked around, took a few pictures, and then noticed that there were mysterious trails marked on the rocks with red and yellow paint marks. Thinking this would lead to a new church, or maybe the school, we followed the trail up the mountain, through bushes of swarming bees, occasionally losing it in the brush. And the trail just kept going, and going… until we were out of Kayakoy altogether. We decided we might as well keep following it even though we had no idea where it ended up… which was a fantastic idea until we lost the trail. Hooray for being adventurous?

Now, the best part about losing the trail was that we basically had to go up and down these steep ravines, climbing over rocks, skidding down hills, etc. It was a lot of fun and very exciting. Eventually, we caught sight of Oludeniz beach, the one where we went paragliding, and decided the trail must lead that way… if only we could find the trail. So we headed in that direction, handily aided by my compass (be prepared!) slipping and falling the whole way. My right hand suffered a tragic injury, as did the seat of my pants. Eventually (miracle of miracles!) we did find the trail again, and I think we even figured out how we veered off in the first place…  (picture incoming!)

So after a nice invigorating stroll, we arrived back at the very same beach we were at 3 days ago. With our very special friend there, Hector, who had not only sold us on the paragliding but had also taken a picture of the two of us, with him, enjoying a beer post-flight, apparently to put on his webpage. We were very excited. If by excited I mean mildly freaked out, especially we he revealed he had STOPPED BY OUR HOSTEL ROOM THE NIGHT BEFORE TO SEE US. Then he started showing off his muscles and talking about how in shape he was. Fortunately, when we started playing rummy and didn’t invite him along he sort of left us alone. So we got to people-watch on the beach another day - it was really very pleasant. (Well, except for when the people-watching included the return of skanky Speedo man from the boat the day before.)

So as we’ve started running out of time here, less time spent on the Internet and more time spent squeezing every last minute out of the day!  But I’m sure I can find the time at work to update some entries.  Heh.  However, for those wondering, a quick overview of where we’ve been since the last update:

Fethiye - spent one more day visiting the ghost town of Kayakoy (abandoned 75 years ago when all the Greeks living in Turkey moved to Greece and vice versa.)  We then sort of hiked, sort of trailblazed back down to Oleduniz (the beach where we went sky-diving) and met up with our good friend Hector there.  If by good friend I mean sketchy guy who sold us the skydiving package and then stopped by our hostel room the next night to see if we wanted to go out.  Sweet.  We then headed out to Olympos…

Olympos - Where we met up with some other travellers, saw the eternal Olympic flame’s birthplace (really cool!) and hung out in a treehouse.  And drank some beer.  Then we headed to Antalya..

Antalya - where we spent five hours seeing the sights, including a fun museum that featured exciting scenes from Turkish life 500 years ago (and you think I’m being facetious.)  We also only made our bus thanks to a nice Turkish waiter who spoke very good German but very bad English - so he actually walked us the 4 blocks to the bus station!  Because we were on the way to Goreme…

Goreme:  We spent 4 days 3 nights here, going on hikes both successful and unsuccessful, meeting even more other travellers and actually hanging out with some locals, and going scootering in the hills (to, among other things, an amazing underground city that I’ll write more about later, a castle and a winery.)  We also rented bikes and headed over to Urgup where we tried our hand at pottery (apparently they let native English speakers take multi-week pottery classes there if you just talk in English with them… how cool is that?  Gabi, you should totally do that after you graduate - you’d love it.)  Hmm, we also played a lot of backgammon, saw some ‘interesting’ rock formations, and drank a lot of tea, a lot of beer, and a lot of Cappadocia wine.  We headed out on another horrible overnight bus to Istanbul for one day…

Istanbul:  Where we’ve ridden a ferry on the Bosphorus, bought Turkish Delight in the Spice Market, bartered in the Great Bazaar, and drank the most expensive cup of tea ever.  Which was spilled on my face.  But we still didn’t receive a discount.  Grrr.  

Tomorrow morning we head back home!  Booo!  I think we’ve both had a very nice time here, although the famous Turkish hospitality is more so they can sell you things than anything else.  I plan on making a Tshirt that says:  “Turkish hospitality — No obligation”  when I get back.  I also need to find out more about the famous Ataturk, pictured everywhere here.  But don’t worry, we’ve been taking pictures.

Before I get into the meat of this entry (describing a 12 Islands boat tour Kate and I took in Fethiye) I have two random incidents that we were lucky enough to experience.

1. One night in Fethiye we went out to a bar, and we saw a couple of British tourists-expats-something. They seemed high or drunk or something when they started talking to us, asking if we had seen their child outside and how was she. We could only assume they meant the big enormous dog that tried to follow us in. But then, in a moment that I see as totally ridiculous, at 11PM on a Wednesday night an actual child wandered into the bar! A blond girl around 8 years old who did not seem to speak any Turkish! Apparently they had sent her outside for the 30+ minutes they were in the bar drinking. And then they sent her back outside, telling her to stay on the righthand side of the bar. And this was in a city in Turkey - How is it even remotely acceptable?

2. I met my first certifiable Turkish creep on the bus from Antalya to Goreme. When Kate and I were talking at the beginning of the trip (around 8PM) he was giving us mean looks and complaining to the attendant. Then, while I was falling asleep in the seat ahead of him, I felt something in my haır - the airconditioning I assumed. After about ten minutes of feeling it on and off I looked behind me… and his nasty little fingers were actually stroking my hair! Ugh. I was (and am) sort of grossed out. I decided at the next stop I would tell his frıend (the attendant, who spoke no English) to move either him or myself. Fortunately he got off the bus before then. But, ugh. Not acceptable!!

As for the boat tour, it was really very nice. A little chilly (only from the wind) but we definitely still got some sun. Also, there were a number of interesting tourists to talk to. My personal favorite was the native Turk who wore his speedo all day. Sometimes when it got a little chilly he would put a fleece on over it, but never any pants! And lets just say his speedo was not very high quality. We would be walking around an ısland, pushing our way through pıne trees, and we would see him coming towards us from the distance, still wearing nothing but a speedo! Awesome.

In addition to seeing far more of that man than I ever needed to, we also made a number of stops at islands (five I believe) and saw about a million more from the boat. Some of the islands had ruins, some just had little beach like things, some of them had farms and gardens and pubs. One even had movie star homes. But lets be honest, after 8 hours and 5 islands everything starts to look the same. The best part of the trip was probably just relaxing on a boat all day.

The worst part, speedos aside, was walking up a hill, finding a dog with ticks all over his body, and then having to walk back down the hill, pushing our way through bushes. Ugh.

So we had big plans for Monday… go around, lounge around on a beautiful Mediterranean beach, maybe remember to put some sunscreen on.  Unlıke in Ephesus.  Maybe those masked Koreans were onto something.

Except of course, we get to the beautiful beach and decide to go para-gliding instead.

(Yeah, it was pretty nice.)

Kate coming in for the landing:

We then hung around on the beach with some of the other paragliders - John (a nice normal American) and someone we will call Ganja Boy.  Who, when asked what he smokes, replies:  “Everything, mon, everything” and had his hair in nice long dreads.  Oh, and not to stereotype, but lived in Amsterdam.  We had a nice day out with nothing too ridiculous happen (except for the man in the beige colored speedo) but it was beautiful out there.

Eventually, we made our way out of the beach and back to the hostel.  Also, Kate might be writing another guest entry!  And I really need to upload some more pictures.  But, still to come, a tour by boat of up to and maybe including 12 islands! The de-ticking of a dog!  More Turkish delight!  A ghost town!  Getting lost on a hike!  And, tomorrow… making our way to Olympos, home of the famous tree-houses.

So, apologies for the lateness on this one, but its my second try… the computer deleted my first entry!  Here goes…

On Sunday Kate and I woke up early to head out to the ruins of Ephesus.  Ephesus was buılt by the Ephesians (!) shortly after the tıme of Christ.  I believe.  Although I am writing this without notes, so who knows. 

Since we hadnt done much walking yet we decided to hike the three kilometers out to the site instead of taking a taxi.  Of course, this meant that we got there later than we had originally planned.  In fact, we were lucky enough to be right behind all the tour buses and their diesal fumes!  Such clever timing.  It turned out okay, though, because most of the tour groups were starting at the upper entrance while we chose the lower.   We were basically the only people we saw for the first few buildings, including the 25,000 seat Grand Theater.  Apparently they have “controversial” concerts here in the summertime, but sadly we missed them.  And I would like to note that I fully support using the theater for what it was originally built for, regardless of the controversy.

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well it is time for the guest entry…..

so we got back to our hostel after smokıng up and got a cab to the otogar - plans were going perfectly.  we were right on time and everything.  except it turned out that the otobus line that we had planned to take had zero open seats for the buses leaving that night.  whether this was actually true or the easiest answer to give wıth little english and my little turkish will never be known.  fortunately there was a nice old man who took us to another bus line that was goıng to izmir and we got seats on the bus leaving approx 20 min later.  so it seemed things were still goıng well.  until the bus rolled out and 15, 20, 30 minutes later the lights were still on (the bus departed at 1030 pm and was a 9 hr rıde so pretty clearly a sleeping trip). i was startıng to get a little annoyed all the lights were still on when an even more annoying thing happened - they turned on a 1965 era movie, dubbed in Turkish wıth a horrendous laugh track.  i swear it was the longest movie ever because that laugh track kept playıng nonstop until at least 2 am.  i put my ipod on the same song on repeat just to drown out the noise so i could sleep - to no avail.  also in these fırst few hours of the trip the bus made approximately 5-8 stops.  since we got our tickets minutes before the bus left, we had the convenient seats right by the door. and it was no longer nice and warm outside - so every stop resulted in a blast of cold air hitting us directly, and not ending for 5-10 min.  that was until the 1 hr long stop for which the door was left open at least half the time.  so right when the movie was ending the lights went out and i thought Finally!  we can sleep!  that is when the AC was turned on.  the bus had been a comfortable temperature before so why in the middle of the night (2-5 am) the cooling air* had to be turned on is beyond me but they kept it that way for hours and hours.  just long enough so that when the bus started to be a reasonable temperature the sun was rising.  so i think we may have slept 1 - 1.25 hours over the entire 9 hr bus ride.  we also saw a dead cat get thrown out of a Nissan right in the middle of the highway. 

*Editors Note (Malena that is):  I would like to add that the cold air blowing directly on Kate may have been my own fault, because the choice was that I either allow it to blow on me, or redirect the airflow so it was directly on her….  I have a much more delicate constitution, so I, at 3:00 in the morning, rationalized it by telling myself she could handle cold much better than me.  Plus the air was coming out of her vent!!  Of course, even without the freezing air blowing directly on my legs it was still much too cold, bumpy, and loud to actually sleep.

So after the long overnight bus ride wıth no sleep (that our special guest blogger will write about once I stop hogging the computer) the only logical thing to do was take a nap.  We found a hostel and pretty much crashed there for a while.  The hostel owner also decided to go above and beyond, and asked Kate and I if we are twins!  Sisters I can sort of see… but twins??

In any case, we decided to take it easy for the day, and save Ephesus for Sunday (the next day.)  The good news was that it was market day in Selçuk!

However, our first stop of the day was the Ephesus museum.  There was a neat exhibit on gladiators there, complete with bones showing how they died (pitchfork through the head, sword through the soldier, etc.)  The best part was where a resident philosopher compared stadium, circus, and sex.  Apparently they are the only places people can look themselves in the eye and our emotions can soar to such heights.   Fantastic.

In addition to the deep thoughts of the day, the Ephesus museum also included some statues that hadnt been stolen by the Brits and a statue of Artemis with rows of breasts that are thought to be severed testicles, according to the Lonely Planet (although I dont really see it.)

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Here Kate and I are post-nargileh:

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The promised Air Turkey gift package - note the shoehorn, slippers, and light pink eyeshades (which would have been nice had they actually been thick enough to block out any light…)

Here I am learning how to make a carpet (this was cup of tea number 4):

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