Turkey

December 1999

The crusader castle of St Peter at Bodrum looked spectacular as we approached the harbour by ferry from Kos in the late afternoon. But after a quick visit to see another Ancient Wonder of the World - the Mausoleum, we took off. The supposed wonder was originally 60m high but was now just a hole in the ground. A bunch of cowboy builders must have done that one. We had a power cut in Bodrum as we left. The Turkish Government had organised voluntary power cuts twice a day for 2 hour sessions to provide extra power for the earthquake areas.

The great thing about Turkish buses is that they are so civilised. They bring round coffee, tea and water and splash your hands with lemon cologne at regular intervals. And they are cheap. Everything is cheap. I got 440,000 Lire to the English Pound two years ago. Now I get 825,000. I am a millionaire with £1.21 in my pocket!

We based ourselves in Selcuk for 3 nights at the Artemis Guest House run by an Australian Turk. For £2.50 a night. By the number of Australian establishments on the West Coast you would think they had won at Gallipoli. No American names in sight but plenty of All Blacks Hostel, Outback Cafe, Boomerang Cafe etc. There are only Aussie backpackers in these parts and the entire tourist industry seems to be geared to them.

Just outside Ephesis lay another Ancient Wonder of the World - the scanty remains of the Artemision (Sanctuary of Artemis). Today there is just one pillar standing (Same bloody builders?). I had visited Ephesis back in 1988 as my first major ancient ruin and it was like returning to an old friend - except that the friend had got on a bit and now had parts closed that had been open, fences where you could once roam. There were 15, mostly ageing American tour groups asking dumb questions loudly over their louder clothes. But they soon left when they got desperate for the toilet.

Ephesis now has some fabulous restored terrace houses lived in by the rich and famous. Typically they have also been closed off to the public. They lie beneath a huge glasshouse. We snuck off up the side and disappeared in under the huge sheets of glass for our own illegal tour of the latest finds.

I made a non-too-fond visit to Kusadasi for a couple of hours by the coast where I got the worst case of the runs in my life (17 glorious days in 1988). It is still a seedy tourist town, overdeveloped and under visited. I left with my bowels intact.

We made a day trip to Pummakale - about 3 hours east, past fields of women in baggy trousers and headscarves picking the crops of oranges and olives. At dusk, the farmer comes to fetch them. They sit huddled together in the trailer behind his tractor.

Pamukkale is the famous site of the Persil-white travertine terraces and hot springs flowing down them. Or was. The Government has apparently siphoned off most of the water for the earthquake zone. There were only two pools to paddle around in at the bottom of a waterfall of two dozen decent sized pools, now dry. Its still a fabulous site though I bet no one tries to sell a postcard of it looking like this.

At the top of the terraces are the mighty ruins of Hierapolis. There is a 2km stretch of Roman and Byzantine tombs - the largest ancient necropolis in Asia Minor. There were some great engravings on some of them warning off grave robbers etc. One warned offenders 'may they never enjoy their children, nor their lives, nor may they ever walk the land or sail the seas, may they die barren, lifeless and may all kinds of illnesses befall them. After their death may the angry and avenging Gods of the underworld take them' which appears to have covered all the angles.

We headed north to Bergama to see the ancient Acropolis of Pergamon. The site stood out impressively on a hill overlooking the modern town. Unfortunately, the Germans nicked everything a century ago. Thanks boys. I saw the reconstructed ruins in Berlin a few years back. Consequently, apart from the views there is little to see apart from the very steep sided theatre built on the side of the slope. Just as well, since we didn't bother with a taxi but walked up and snuck in for free through the ancient walls.

It took a handful of dolmuses (cheap minibuses) and 6 slow hours to reach Canakkale 200km north-west of Bergama. We decided to go upmarket from non heated Pensions and splashed out on a hotel by the ferries. It cost £4.25 a night including all you can eat breakfast, central heating etc. Luxury at a price you can afford. We didn't get there until 10pm. We ventured out to find something to eat and ended up in small cafe where bunches of drunken elderly Turks were singing along to a fiddle player, Turkish bongos and clarinet. As we ate Turkish moussaka, Raki in copious amounts was passed to me so we felt part of the spontaneous party.

We had met a very friendly (for someone who spoke no English) and hospitable Ekrem Kayha in our hotel lobby when he invited us for tea. He also walked in on the scene. Back the hotel he plied us with beer until 2am. Since he was a travelling salesman of bathroom supplies, I was able to learn such useful Turkish expressions like 'banyoda kloset arkasindaki bos alani degerlendirir' (utilises empty space behind toilet tanks), 'koruma kapagi sabunun erimesini onler' (cover prevents the soap from melting) and 'montaj icýi aleti, vida, delik gerektirmez' (no tools, screws or drilling required). You never know when you may have to use them.

The following day, we walked 200m from the hotel to the ferry and caught a 25-minute crossing across the Dardanelles to Eceabat to view the sights of Gallipoli. The Australian tour groups pay $19 for the daytrip, which under own steam cost $2. The peninsula, famous for the 1915 military cockup (however much they try and make it sound heroic) was a pleasant fertile area of rolling hills. We walked along the coast to Anzac Cove and then tackled Snipers Valley up to more memorials on the hills. This little 3-km venture in the wilds of undergrowth, gave us a taste of what it must have been like to clamber up the steep sandy cliffs under gunfire. Instead of shrapnel (some of which I found), we were dive bombed by locusts. There are even still some trench tunnels preserved. Today, we had the place to ourselves. There were only a few Turkish tourists. We hitched a lift back to the ferry with a tennis supplies businessman.

50km south of Canakkale, Troy was a one-horse town (geddit?). The agricultural hamlet had more tractors than cars. It also had UNESCO protected ruins of nine levels from 2500BC. Although presented well, they were still just large blocks of limestone. Troy did however, win the prize for the tackiest object in Turkey - a 100ft wooden horse that you could climb up into looking very embarrassed.

It was time to head east and we faced two days on buses. 5 hours east of Canakkale lies the bustling city of Bursa with over 1 million population. Our first real Turkish metropolis. We had come to see some of the 'finest' early Ottoman monuments from the Eleventh Century. I'm sure they looked great in their time, but surrounded by the Turkish equivalent of Manchester - they were nothing special. And it was raining. And some of them were closed. I did like the gigantic 1399 Ulu Cami Mosque with a large fountain in the middle.

It was time to bust out of Bursa and head for the Cappadocia region. The first stage was a mind numbing 6-hour bus ride to Ankara across north central Anatolia. The Rough Guide described the flat barren landscape as 'monotonous, rolling vistas of stone-strewn grassland, dotted with rocky outcrops, hospitable only to sheep'. In fact the only colour we saw was when a henna-tattooed woman sitting across the way in her yashmak headdress, threw up into the aisle. What with that, a crying baby and the Turkish version of Abbott & Costello on the TV, it was a bus journey from hell.

Ankara, the capital, had nothing of interest for us, except a massive bus station to keep moving. We caught a bus to Kirsehir, 3 hours south which was as far as we could get that day. Fortunately, there was a hotel by the road where we were dropped in the freezing cold.

The next morning we had a communication breakdown. I set off earlier than Jo to walk to the central bus station with backpack to check out times for Neveshir. When she did not appear, I walked the kilometre back to the hotel where they told me she had headed off down the main road in a completely different direction. A local offered me a ride and after 3 kilometres I was thinking how did Jo get so far so quickly carrying a backpack? All was revealed when another bus station appeared with Jo standing there. We had not been told that there were two bus stations. Jo had been told to go to this one, and not seeing me down the long stretch of road, had stuck out her thumb and hitched it. There was inevitably the offer of sex from the driver - but fortunately she 'had her husband waiting at the bus station'.

Due to these fun and games, we had missed the 9am bus. To avoid a 3-hour wait until the next one, we decided to try and hitch the 90 kms to Neveshir. Within 5 minutes, we were in a pick up truck with a happy Turk. For our fare, we had to sing a song for every one that he sang. It is a strange experience to hear 'Ali Baba had a Farm' in Turkish.

We rolled into Avanos an hour later - surprised to have reached the Cappadocia region so easily and quickly. There is an excellent local bus/dolmus service between all the towns and villages and we caught one to the fortress town of Uchisar. It was deserted. Every pension closed. We hunted around and found the Hotel Buket and bargained for the deluxe Chambre Troglogyte (a posh room dug out of the rock in the hill). At £5 each a night, we decided to base ourselves here for 3 nights.

Cappadocia has a unique landscape in Turkey. It has been created by the complex interaction of natural and human forces over vast spans of time. There are great expanses of strangely eroded, carved and shaped volcanic matter. It looks like god dropped lemon meringue and vanilla/strawberry/orange ice cream in great dollops to create 'fairy chimneys' and smooth conical structures. The ice cream is actually volcanic tuff which is very soft and a block of harder rock is left standing alone as the tuff around is worn away, until it stands at the top of a large cone.

We spent three days exploring the whole area by foot, bus and hitching. Because the rock is so soft, the local population, throughout the centuries, chose to dig their houses out of the rocks. Most of these cave houses are now deserted, but a few hotels turn them into rooms which is what we stayed in. There were so many hills and cliffs of carved rooms everywhere, I nicknamed Cappadocia as the 'Land of the human termites'.

There are lots of underground cities from the past too. We visited Derinkuyu, the largest to be excavated. There were eight floors reaching a depth of 55 metres. Inside as we bent low to get through the tunnels, we discovered empty rooms which had been dining halls, living quarters, churches and a winepress. Long narrow ventilation shafts had been cut to 85 metres to provide air to the complex.

Cappadocia was also a popular area for early Christianity until the Eleventh Century. Consequently, there are many monasteries and churches carved into the rock. Zelve has some spectacular fairy chimneys with a monastic complex carved into them at different levels. You have to crawl up tunnels to get to upper levels. The Goreme Open Air Museum has a total of thirty different churches all carved into the rocks. The valley is UNESCO protected as a world heritage site. Inside, there are many religious paintings and frescoes stretching back to the fourth century in different states of repair (The Arabs defaced many when they took over). We were the only tourists there in the late afternoon.

Ilhara Gorge, about 100kms east of Neveshir (the largest town in the area), had a beautiful walk through a wide valley with sheer brown cliffs towering over a river. You could climb up 200 ft to the base of the cliffs at various points to visit another series of carved churches. We got buses to the Gorge, but in mid afternoon, there was no public transport back. We managed to hitch in 3 rides and get within 3km of the hotel just as it started to freeze in the dark (5pm)

In Avanos, the pottery town, we came across Galip, a master potter who has become infamous for collecting female hair clippings over the last two decades. We were lead down through cave rooms full of pottery to a musty room about 30ft long covered in hair clippings hanging from the ceiling and walls. By each donation, were the woman's details. Apparently, every year he picks ten out and offers them a free holiday in Avanos. Jo obligingly left her sample. Maybe I should try a new angle at picking up women by collecting toe nail clippings.

The December weather has been warm during the day, but once darkness falls, it is freezing outside. There was a smattering of snow within the Ilhara Gorge and all the highest points in the region were now dusted with snow

Ramadan had started three days earlier. Observant Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from sunrise to sunset. This meant that all food places (shops, cafes, restaurants etc) were closed until 5pm by which time it was dark and very cold. The buses all shut down before 5pm and tourist places shut at 4pm. It made for a short day, when you are not taking tour buses around (despite a few tour buses - the area was virtually empty). We were reduced to hitching back in the dark a couple of times and in our deserted town, living on toasted cheese sandwiches in the workingman’s' club (40 Turks playing cards while we stuffed ourselves). I read in the Turkish Daily Times (our only news in 2 weeks) that earthquake victims in northwest Turkey had been excused from Ramadan. All talk is about Turkey's attempt to join the European Union. From what we have seen, I can't see it taking much longer. It is becoming very westernised.

The strange thing about Ramadan is not seeing Turkish men smoke during the day. It is as if they have lost a limb since most seemed to chain smoke before the festival started. Once darkness falls they can't smoke enough to make up.

We continued to find the Turks very hospitable. Every time we tried to hitch a ride it only took minutes. The drivers attempt to communicate, laugh and refuse any offers of money. A truck driver and his mate who gave us a lift back from the gorge tried to demonstrate England by driving on the left hand side of the mostly empty road for a few miles.

The 15-hour overnight bus trip to Trabzon was notable for two things. Firstly I was outsnored for the first time by the man behind. He woke me up with his snoring because my chair was shaking. Across the aisle "Marlboro Man" competed. This man coughed like it was his last breath. You could hear it starting from his feet gradually moving up to his mouth where it finally erupted and shook my chair. The only time he was quiet was when he was outside at rest stops in the snow having a cigarette.

Trabzon, a Black Sea city, was closed when we arrived at 7am. That is, there was a powercut and nothing was open. Not even hotels. It took a dozen attempts to find a dingy hotel with our first squat toilets (of course it didn't look dingy in the dark!). No one was on the streets.

We had come here to visit the monastery at Sumela - about 60km inland. We knew we were in Eastern Turkey when we passed a family slaughtering and skinning sheep by the side of the road. Nice Sunday morning viewing.

The 14th century Greek Orthodox monastery hung off the edge of a cliff like an eagle's nest a thousand feet above the valley floor. The snow capped mountains and pine tree forests were very un-Turkish and reminded me more of Slovenia and Macedonia. We walked for 30 minutes up a steep woodland trail to reach it. There wasn't much to the ruins, but the spectacular views and silence were magical.

Back in Trabzon, the streets were teeming with people. Ramadan ended at 4pm and around 3.45 everyone started to desert the streets and head home or to restaurants. We entered a cafe and sat at a table. The waiters produced soup, kebabs, water on every table but no one could touch it. They fidgeted with things, put salt on it, smelt it, got their spoons ready. Finally, the TV announced the end and it was all hands on deck. People ate soup, main course and deserts, drank and smoked all at the same time. Within 10 minutes, the place was empty and everyone was back on the streets. It was my fondest memory of Ramadan in Turkey. We were even donated a box of sweet syrupy baklava cakes by our table companions too impatient to finish them.

The bus trip to the border town of Dogubeyazit followed the old "Silk Route" and passed through the spectacular snow covered mountains in brilliant sunshine to a 2000m plateau to Erzurum (it was -16' C here at night). After Erzurum there was rural scenery of small farming villages with haystacks, horses and carts and strange mud huts and satellite dishes (I learnt later that these were Kurdish villages - they all had satellite dishes because they did not trust Turkish news on TV and wanted to access Kurdish TV. Current price for a dish? Three sheep).

The road was icy and treacherous. There were no cars here. Just trucks heading for the border. The Rough Guide describes Agri in 8 words - a "bleak dump, with no conceivable reason for stopping". Unless you had to wait 3 hours for a bus connection. 8 words was too good for it.

Dogubeyazit (renamed "Doggie Biscuit") was a standard gritty border market town but it had a decent hotel which we bargained down from an astonishing $80 to $12 a night ("do we look like Japanese tourists?"). Jo was able to buy her chadour for Iran (long dark coat to cover up all her female figure - what with that and her headscarf it was like going on holiday with my granny!). We walked 6km past a massive military camp with dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles to visit a splendid old 17th century ruined Turkish Palace in the hills (Isak Pasa Sarayi).

In the lobby of Hotel Nuh (renamed Doh!), we met Mr Parasut - a climber and tour leader. His card said "Overland Expetiditition Loader". He told us that Mount Ararat had just opened again after 10 years. You could now climb the mountain where Noah landed - but it would cost $2500 - mostly to bribe the Police and Army chiefs in town. He also gave us some good information on Iran.

The next day at 7am, we caught a minibus to the border. It was closed. We waited until 8am when the officials turned up and started to inspect passports. Ours was detained and we were told to wait. Meanwhile a French couple driving, and an Englishman/German also driving got through. What was going on? We waited half an hour before kicking up a fuss and finally getting them back. We learnt from the others that they were looking for bribes and we hadn't given them anything. But we got through, leaving the others paying out dollars at every office to get their cars in.

One final piece of advice about Turkey - visit it when it is warm!

Travel - £73.35
Accommodation - £68.78
Food - £45.20
Other - £45.11 (including £10 visa charge)
Total - £232.44

Grand Total - £481.15