Thursday, October 21, 2004
Dondurma!
Dondurma is icecream in Turkish. I like icecream.
Sladoled is icecream in Slovenian. Glace is icecream in French. I like icecream in ALL languages!
The last week and a bit have been magic. Turkey is a seriously wonderful place to visit, especially at this time of year. Things are so cheap that even though I've been spending up large and managed to lose over 1000 euro for a day (I got most of it back) and had to pay for a doctor, I'm still not wildly off my target of 30 euros a day! I should be caught up to it by the time I leave Turkey.
Kusidasi was the port we arrived in from Samos, Greece, on the ferry on Tuesday. We spent four nights there - more than we originally intended. The delay was caused by us wanting to go to Pamukkale, but not quite managing to get there two days running.
Our first big touristy thing was going to the ancient ruins of Ephesus. This place is so old it's in the bible! And Alexander and the Romans both used it at different times to rule the province of Asia. At its height it had a population of 350,000 people, which is massive! You can walk down the old streets lined with broken pillars, go inside old restored houses (unfortunately closed when we were there), see the facade of the old library, visit the house where the Virgin Mary (who by this time was undoubtedly no longer a virgin, as Jesus had younger brothers) supposedly died, stand in the old council chambers/concert hall and scramble all over the HUGE theatre, which seats 25,000 people! In recent times they've had Sting and Elton John concerts there. All this stuff is 2000 years old or more!
The next landmark was Pamukkale, but a lot happened in the intervening days of laziness. In Selcuk we talked to a carpet seller who is younger than us. He tried to find us a Turkish language book by escorting us around various little book shops, then invited us into his shop for tea. We chatted for about half an hour about NZ and the Turkish army (every Turk has to serve in it, though it's unclear whether this means women; people here just say "everyone") and not once did he try to sell us a carpet! He told us about his shop and how he was trying to change it to meet the demands of the tourist, making small, decorative things that could be easily transported and opening up the small dark shop to a lighter, open-plan layout. He was really cool, and at the age of twenty he'd been doing this for about seven years!
Back in Kusidasi we (by which I mean Paz) were making an impression on the locals. We've been offered jobs for next summer as anything from boat tour guides to toilet cleaners, had tea with countless shop owners (even after they'd given up trying to sell us stuff), been invited into a closed (for the season) bar to have drinks with its owners (this is where Paz had a proposal of marriage), been called lazy by our friendly local Turkish/Irish restauranteur and asked, "So, what do ya do when yer horny?" by same.
Pamukkale = a big white puffy (but not soft) hill with pools of water. Picturesque, but you walk up the hill... and then walk back down again. More interesting to me were the ruins of the Greek (I assume) city Hierapolis, which used to be on the same site, but we didn't go there. Also, it's a mission to get there, and not really worth staying the night. But, it's also on about a MILLION postcards, so it was a bit of a must-do.
From there to Marmaris, where Mehmet the Star met us the bus station. Ara and Paz have a friend at uni in NZ (who I can't wait to meet) who is Turkish and has been sorting stuff for us over here. His aunt in Istanbul has a friend in Marmaris who runs boat tours and various other enterprises, whose name is Mehmet. He found us a hotel where we were paying the equivalent of 10 euros per night for a flash place INCLUDING breakfast and dinner. So primo! Also, he did tons of other cool stuff for us, but I have to go pay for stuff and let others use the computer (what a hog).
Yakinda Gurusuruz!
Sladoled is icecream in Slovenian. Glace is icecream in French. I like icecream in ALL languages!
The last week and a bit have been magic. Turkey is a seriously wonderful place to visit, especially at this time of year. Things are so cheap that even though I've been spending up large and managed to lose over 1000 euro for a day (I got most of it back) and had to pay for a doctor, I'm still not wildly off my target of 30 euros a day! I should be caught up to it by the time I leave Turkey.
Kusidasi was the port we arrived in from Samos, Greece, on the ferry on Tuesday. We spent four nights there - more than we originally intended. The delay was caused by us wanting to go to Pamukkale, but not quite managing to get there two days running.
Our first big touristy thing was going to the ancient ruins of Ephesus. This place is so old it's in the bible! And Alexander and the Romans both used it at different times to rule the province of Asia. At its height it had a population of 350,000 people, which is massive! You can walk down the old streets lined with broken pillars, go inside old restored houses (unfortunately closed when we were there), see the facade of the old library, visit the house where the Virgin Mary (who by this time was undoubtedly no longer a virgin, as Jesus had younger brothers) supposedly died, stand in the old council chambers/concert hall and scramble all over the HUGE theatre, which seats 25,000 people! In recent times they've had Sting and Elton John concerts there. All this stuff is 2000 years old or more!
The next landmark was Pamukkale, but a lot happened in the intervening days of laziness. In Selcuk we talked to a carpet seller who is younger than us. He tried to find us a Turkish language book by escorting us around various little book shops, then invited us into his shop for tea. We chatted for about half an hour about NZ and the Turkish army (every Turk has to serve in it, though it's unclear whether this means women; people here just say "everyone") and not once did he try to sell us a carpet! He told us about his shop and how he was trying to change it to meet the demands of the tourist, making small, decorative things that could be easily transported and opening up the small dark shop to a lighter, open-plan layout. He was really cool, and at the age of twenty he'd been doing this for about seven years!
Back in Kusidasi we (by which I mean Paz) were making an impression on the locals. We've been offered jobs for next summer as anything from boat tour guides to toilet cleaners, had tea with countless shop owners (even after they'd given up trying to sell us stuff), been invited into a closed (for the season) bar to have drinks with its owners (this is where Paz had a proposal of marriage), been called lazy by our friendly local Turkish/Irish restauranteur and asked, "So, what do ya do when yer horny?" by same.
Pamukkale = a big white puffy (but not soft) hill with pools of water. Picturesque, but you walk up the hill... and then walk back down again. More interesting to me were the ruins of the Greek (I assume) city Hierapolis, which used to be on the same site, but we didn't go there. Also, it's a mission to get there, and not really worth staying the night. But, it's also on about a MILLION postcards, so it was a bit of a must-do.
From there to Marmaris, where Mehmet the Star met us the bus station. Ara and Paz have a friend at uni in NZ (who I can't wait to meet) who is Turkish and has been sorting stuff for us over here. His aunt in Istanbul has a friend in Marmaris who runs boat tours and various other enterprises, whose name is Mehmet. He found us a hotel where we were paying the equivalent of 10 euros per night for a flash place INCLUDING breakfast and dinner. So primo! Also, he did tons of other cool stuff for us, but I have to go pay for stuff and let others use the computer (what a hog).
Yakinda Gurusuruz!
# posted by Doug @ 06:48 
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