Pamukkale, Turkey (Post #46)
Hi!
Michele here….Today is Monday, September 5th. After spending a few days in Selcuk, Turkey, we moved on to Pamukkale and today we took a bus from Pamukkale to Koycegiz…but I am getting ahead of myself.
So, what have we done since I last wrote? Well, we went to several ruins on our own (walked to them from Selcuk, which is why we chose to stay in Selcuk). The most famous one that some of you may have heard of is called Ephesus. Ephesus is mentioned multiple times in the bible. We walked down what used to be the main street of the city and saw what was left of an incredible library and the stadium that holds about 25,000 people. I will try to upload a photo or two tomorrow morning so you can see these things. We also spent time at the Selcuk festival. Coincidentally, we were there when this small town (pop about 25,000) had its summer festival. We ate traditional Turkish pancakes (that is the English word) made by some older ladies and we had what I will call taffy ice cream. It is made in the traditional Turkish fasion (whatever that is!) and had the consistency of taffy but it is ice cream. Very interesting and tastey! Mike and I also tried raki, a traditional Turkish liquor. It was licorise flavor, sort of like Ouzo or Sambuca, but when you added water to it, it turned white and cloudy. It was quite strong and neither one of us liked it but, like everything else here, it sure was interesting.
One night we also decided to take the public bus to a nearby beach and walk along the beach at sunset. This Pamucak beach has soft sand, which apparently is unusual in Turkey where most beaches have pebbles or rocks. We found the public bus o.k. but it dropped us off at the public end of the beach, which was sort of sketchy. The resorts have their pieces of the beach and then there is the public beach, which is where we ended up. This was o.k. and in the end it did not matter too much because Mike and I were 2 of about 10 people on the entire beach. This seemed very strange to us. Still, we walked from one end to the other and back and watched a beautiful sunset with the Turkish mountains in the background. Again, I wish I could upload here (maybe tomorrow) so you could see a picture. Anyway, then it was time for us to catch the public bus back. We went back to the spot we were dropped off at. It was now dark and there were no lights on this small road in a sort of sketchy area. I REALLY wanted that bus to show up! It finally came after we stood there for about 30 minutes. The ride home was very interesting. First, there were no lights on the roads and people would flag down the bus and the bus driver would come to a screetching halt (since they were hard to see) to pick these people up. Then we came across a group of teenagers going to the Selcuk festival and we picked all of them up. Mind you, this bus seats about 12 people. After that we (the bus driver) seemed to be playing some sort of game with a motorcycle in front of us that had 4 people on it. Lord! It was certainly an adventure. Finally, as Mike and I were getting on the bus to travel to Pamukkale (see below) we were stopped by a person who spoke English and was interpretting for a young Turkish woman who was an artist at the Selcuk festival. She asked her friend, the interpreter, if she could take some photos of Mike because she wanted to do a painting of him. Mike said sure and she took several photos from different angles of his face. I know he would probably kill me if he knew I just wrote that (he is drinking a beer right now at the pension bar with some people we met on the bus). Just another tidbit I thought I would share with all of you.
Yesterday we traveled by bus from Selcuk to Pamukkale. We spent the night at a nice pension last night and got up at 5:30am this morning to see a beautiful area made out of white calcium. This calcium area (hills) have small water pools within the ledges and at sunrise, we climbed to the top of these hills to get a lovely view of the town, the mountains, and the water pools. This area is also home to the Hierapolis ruins which included two theatres, a market, tombs, and an octogon church, all of which were pretty easily seen within the remaining ruins. I got a lot of great photos (and by the way, I have been burning CDs off of my memory card so I have back ups of my photos.)
This afternoon we rode a bus from Pamukkale to Koycegiz. Koycegiz is known for the large lake that dominates the town. Tonight we are going on a late night boat cruise on the lake (for about 7.50 US dollars) and will go to some famous mud baths and hot springs off the shores of the lake. The lake is reportedly quite warm and so we will go swimming in the lake (off of the boat tonight) around 2am. I’ll write a report later and let you know how it all turned out.
We are checking out of this very nice pension tomorrow morning and heading for Fethiye, another city/town along the Mediterranean coast. Gotta go! Bye!
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Tags: Category #13 Turkey
Michele Harmon
Mike and Michelle, it’s Jon (one of the Canadians from the train to Breclav). I’m envious of the time you have to spend in non-touristy parts of Turkey. We will be in Istanbul for 1 week (arriving Sept. 9) and then I hope to see some non-touristy places on the way down the west coast.
The only city that you mentioned which I can find on a map is Canakkale. Are you still in that area of Turkey? Are you further down the coast now? Or are you heading towards the centre?
The picture of where you ate in Selcuk looks fantastic. I can’t wait to see the pictures you will upload when you find a place to do so.
Keep in touch,
Jon
Michele, I’m sure I speak for many with this request: Please post a pic of one of these “squat toilets.” Your vivid description just wasn’t enough. Take care.