La Turquie partie I: Bodrum to Pamukkale to Ankara

The windy ride to Bodrum

After much negotiation and a few trips to the dreaded Pothia to buy tickets (for some reason it was difficult to find one-way tickets), we managed to board a boat to Turkey; Bodrum, to be exact. Needless to say, we were very confused during the entire journey since we spoke neither Turkish nor Greek, and after a bumpy, rather nauseating journey, we landed in yet another strange country, where more confusion ensued. We were somehow singled out as Americans, our passports confiscated by a young, attractive woman who claimed to be an official though was wearing a tube top and converse and led us very rapidly to the front of the line to have our passports stamped. I knew to never give my passport to anybody or to ever be separated from it period, so chasing this lady through the crowds felt especially wrong, but it all happened so fast I had no idea what to do except follow my passport. We were ushered into a tiny office with an old man who spoke no English but somehow we negotiated our way through the process of buying visas (with American dollars, which we luckily had), stamping our passports, and joining a herd to mount a bus which took us to Bodrum.

Giant bird nesting in Selçuk...if you know what species, let me know!

Bodrum was awful, and full of drunk British people, and seemed to actually be a British colony, as you could pay for everything either in Turkish lira or British pounds. We had dollar beers at a Chinese restaurant in order to try to get some information from the waiters about where we were and what we should do. Our waiter, who was excited that we were Americans and NOT British, was very helpful and friendly, gave us a map, showed us the neighborhood where we might find a cheap place to stay and sat with us and discussed what sights we should see. We decided to flee Bodrum as quickly as possible, which we could only do in the morning since that’s when the buses left for the North. After our beer, we made the long walk to the neighborhood of pensayons where we hoped to find a room, but it turned out that everything was full. After asking every place we passed for several hours we finally found a disgusting and overpriced pensayon where we paid thirty euros for a room that smelled like something had died under the bed with air conditioning that dropped ice on you while you were sleeping and a bathroom that was clearly hooked up directly to the sewers. UGH. We tried to negotiate the price but we were told that was not an option. Thus the scene was set for the majority of our experiences in that country.

Impressive ruins in Ephesus

I think that if I hadn’t been to Morocco I would have much more thoroughly enjoyed Turkey. I was already used to being harassed because of my gender, I was used to eating food that would make most people ill, and I was used to bartering for a fair price and hiding my nationality in the hopes of paying a more reasonable rate for things. But here, it was all that work, all the chaos, ten times the price, and half the exoticism. And it was 40 degrees celcius every day.
In the morning we tried to buy figs and dates but made the mistake of saying we were American and so were going to be charged fifteen euros per kilo (it’s cheaper in France!). Opting to skip breakfast we got on a bus as quickly as possible for Selçuk (say it Sell-chook), where we had made reservations for a hotel in advance (in order to avoid the catastrophe of the night before) and were planning to visit Ephesus (aka Efes), an ancient Greek (later Roman) city that was the second largest city in the word in the 1st century BC (see its wikipedia page; it’s an AMAZING place). We got off the bus and wandered to our hotel, where we were immediately hustled into paying way too much for a guided tour to Pammukale (NEVER get a guided tour to Pammukale) for the day we left. We felt uneasy about it, especially when the hotel’s owner sent one of his employees to follow us to the ATM while we withdrew our payment in full, which we had to pay up front and instead of at the moment of checking out. We had no time to discuss our options out of earshot of the salesman (also the hotel owner), no time to think, no time to decide, and no time to even research other options with other tour companies. This is, apparently, how things work in Turkey.
Our room, however, was very nice. It was clean and the shower worked and the water was warm and the air conditioning cool but not so cold that it spat ice. There was even a little balcony. I was still upset about paying five times more than I would have in Morocco; however, in Selçuk I felt safe enough to go for a run by myself, which I did with minimal incidents of harassment. Breakfast, however, was a rip-off…never get breakfast included in your hotel because you’ll pay 5 euros for a piece of bread, some olives, some

Ephesus' main road

cucumbers and some instant coffee when you’d get that for less than a Euro across the street at the café. Dinner was also an ordeal because without our even asking, the owner had a recommendation and provided us with an escort who would lead us to the restaurant…when we got to the restaurant it was too expensive and owned by a relative of the hotel’s owner and the whole setup reeked of racketeering. I felt very bad for the little girl who had been made to lead us there when we flat-out refused to eat there even after much cajoling and she had to return to the hotel and inform the owner that she had failed. Instead we bought some beers at the nearby market and drank them in the park. After that we went for kebabs that were less than 3 euros (in Morocco I would’ve paid less than one euro, but I wouldn’t have been able to buy beer…so you compromise, I guess).
The next day we walked to Ephesus, having refused the guided tour, and were picked up by some sympathetic Turks who assumed we were hitching (we weren’t, really) and also assumed (correctly) that we were going to Ephesus, which they were able to ask and confirm by using hand gestures. Walking in the

The famous Roman Celcus library

forty-five degree (celcius) heat was exhausting and we were so excited to be picked up we just about passed out in the back of their SUV. When we got to Efes we were confronted by the usual mob of people selling cheap shit (“Genuine Fake Watches!” boasted one sign) for more than it’s worth (unless, of course, you want to give the laborers a living wage…), paid our 10 Euros (maybe it was more, I remember once again being somewhat outraged, though probably unjustifiably) to get in, and proceeded to trudge around one of the most amazing cultural sights I’ve ever set my eyes on. It was worth all the sweating, walking, and bartering.
The tour to Pammukale the next day at 8:30 proved to be disastrous…well, bordering upon disaster, anyway. We boarded a bus that was over an hour late, were the last two to board and so sat separately, and listened to a very attractive girl (who was actually Greek) talk about mostly nothing remotely informative and deflect any and all questions having to do with Turkish history. I slept most of the three hour drive. When we got to Pammukale we were herded into a horrible cafeteria where we ate equally horrible food and I paid six euros for a glass of wine, then we were led to the turnstiles of Pammukale, where our tickets didn’t seem to work and the entire busload of tourists proceeded to jump over the turnstiles, much to the consternation of the guards, who yelled at us in Turkish, which no one aboard the tour understood. Once into the park, we were

I'm a-gonna git me one of 'em

informed that we could continue the tour and hike to an ancient city, or go relax in the warm waters of Pammukale…obivious choice (even in 45 degree heat, tepid water is better than hiking). The visit had hitherto been completely uninformative and I had had enough of ancient cities, so I went to the very crowded tepid waters and bathed myself in the calcium-rich white mud (in which I found band-aids, soda cans, and lots of hair). I nevertheless had a great time in this UNESCO World heritage site whose name means “Cotton Castle”. Most of the pools are artificial due to damage inflicted by-surprise-tourism, but the site is pretty well-protected these days. And amazing. It’s very weird to see cotton-white flowing down a rock face, even if you are surrounded by 15 million-odd tourists. We only had an hour in the water before we needed to re-load. The bus was to drop us off in the

A Muslim wedding below Pamukkale--note the bride's long sleeves and covered hair.

town, where we would catch a bus to Goreme, in Cappadocia (central Turkey). Upon being deposited at the travel agency where we were to catch the bus, we found out that the owner of the Paris Hotel, our hotel in Selçuk, had mistakenly booked us for somewhere else…and we were therefore stuck in Pammukale; all the buses to Cappadocia were full. We were, however, adopted by the travel agent with whom the tickets had

Amazing original tile work and wall-murals in the apartment block at Efes

been booked, who informed us rather gruffly (though I grew so fond of this man in my time of desperation) that the owner of the hotel was an idiot and always made mistakes like this, as was and did the tour operator, so he wasn’t surprised that we were totally screwed. He gave us tea and watermelon and told us we were welcome to sleep in the travel agency if we needed to. His walls were covered with notes from travelers who had been trapped in predicaments similar to(or exactly the same as) our own, extolling his virtuous rescue, his generosity, his linguistic skills, his ability to argue with bus drivers–basically all the travel skills you need in Turkey. I would have been freaking out but I actually love this part of traveling–the disasters, the times when you are stuck with nowhere to sleep and no money. It is when things are out of my control that I am free to calm down. So I drank my tea and ate my watermelon gratefully. The old travel agent peed off his balcony during our tea-time, which was kind of hilarious. He recommended a cheap restaurant and found us a way out of our situation: we would take a bus to Ankara, the capital, and then find a way to Cappadocia from there. We boarded a minivan to the bus depot late that night, after eating a fabulous dinner

Pamukkale...

(surrounded by cats, of course) and drinking more tea with our host/travel agent. Our bumpy minivan ride (which we were lucky to even catch; it was only the convincing of our agent that let us board and squeeze ourselves onto the floor between other passengers’ legs) was exciting; by the end I had moved up to the front seat as all the other passengers had exited, and was talking in broken English /French/Turkish (which I of course don’t speak) with the driver. We got on our night bus to Ankara and slept somewhat peacefully. Upon our morning arrival, I was still feeling adventurous, and insisted that we store our baggage in a locker and board another minivan for an undetermined destination while we waited for our next bus, which left in the afternoon. Austin was hesitant; he didn’t want any more delays (understandably; these setbacks were cutting into our short time in Turkey–which we still were anxious to

...and the pools and crowds therein.

leave, by the way), but cooperatively boarded the minivan and accompanied me to some unknown neighborhood in the center of Ankara, where we met a very friendly man who immediately recognized us as foreigners and insisted that he call his daughter on his cell phone because she spoke English. I talked to her and got directions back to the bus station. We wandered around for about an hour, drank coffee which was about 5 euros because we didn’t ask the price before-hand, visited a depressing pet shop where there was a dying kitten but lots of cute puppies, looked at the outside of a mosque, and then hurried to catch the over-crowded city bus back to the bus station where we finally boarded our bus to Goreme.

~ by Allana on November 5, 2010.