Pammukale day

The morning saw us packing our bags again as Mehmet had told us just before that the room he'd put us in was actually needed by someone else the following night. I had been wondering if that would happen because I realised after we accepted the room he hadn't check with us how many nights we were staying in. He assured us he would be upgrading us which was even better! Given his general manner and previous reviews I'd read about the service here I'm sure that the whole thing was a genuine mistake and he was feeling a bit stink about it.

So we took our bags to reception after a lovely breakfast in the restaurant.

The inside part of the restaurant where we had dinner + breakfast both days.

Then we headed off to see the Travertines and Hieropolis: the whole reason for taking this trouble getting to this out of the way place. Only about a ten minute walk up the road, passed half-hearted hawkers trying to get you to buy a guidebook, and then you are there at the ticket office. Before the terraces begin you have to take your shoes off to walk on them. If you don't a security guard chases you and blows his whistle fiercely (we saw it happen to other dozey people).

The place where you stopped and took off your shoes.

The terraces are pretty amazing. An entire hillside covered with basically a hard white crust formed from something to do with calcium carbonate in the spring water at the top oxidising (or something. There was a chemical formula on the brochure). Almost ruined as an attraction by uncontrolled tourism in the 80s and 90s, it was taken over by UNESCO in the early 2000s and measures were taken to reverse the damage and discolouration of the terraces. You walk along the terraces up to the top, passing by pretty pools of milky blue water and stepping on the rough stone or the strange white mud it creates. The pools on the walkway are artificial, to keep the tourists happy, while the real pools can be seen on the side of the hill, filled and emptied on a rotating to schedule to allow all the pools access to sunlight which will eventually bleach them back to their shiny white perfection.

Foot in white mud.

The view on the way up.

Some of the real terrace pools, the only ones we saw filled with water while we were there.

Hoards of tourists were arriving by the time we were at the top.

At the top of the terrace walkway stands the ruins of Hieropolis and the “Antique Pool”, which I guess used to be the site of a sacred Roman hot-spring pool, but is now essentially a place for tourists to spend too much money to take a dip. We were pretty 'ruined out' from the previous few days but we had a wee poke around the massive site. Probably the best building, presently being restored, was the theatre.

We even paid the extra 5 lira each to take a look in the on-site museum of artifacts from the site.

We had been considered paying the extra and having a swim, but rainclouds were threatening and we knew thunderstorms were on the forecast for the afternoon. Also 30 lira for a swim was bit ridiculous we thought, and the ever increasing crowds of tourists in and around the pool put us off.

So we decided to save our pennys and head back to base. I was keen for a dip in the terrace pools though, so I cheekily used the change facilities at the antique pool and then pool hopped all the way back down the walkway. Greg went for the paddle up to his knees option.

We tootled back to the hotel for a quick shower and change before lunch. When we arrived Mehmet showed us to our new room – wow!

For lunch the Lonely Planet let us down for the first time. We went to a place where the owner was indeed friendly, the menu varied, and the view of the travertines from the patio out back was hard to beat. The food unfortunately was fairly average, the price way too high, and the patio was decorated with flags but no New Zealand! (Ok that last complaint is hardly a valid concern). This was sort of made up by the two gorgeous kitties that loved you so much when you had food! They followed eachother around and one meowed constantly and the other never said a word. Partners in crime they reminded me of Tahi and Rua Julia if you're reading this! They had mastered the art of the pleading look and given the averageness of the donor meat I was quite willing to relinquish some to the kitties but afraid I would upset the owner who seemed to wish the cats would go elsewhere (they were his cats though).

View of the travertines from the restaurant - not too bad!

No NZ flag! The guy suggested we post him one.

Don't know why some of these are appearing sideways when I've already rotated them.

We arrived back pretty early in the afternoon so we sat outside in the restaurant for good wifi reception and relaxed for several hours as the Weather rolled in.

That night we enjoyed another meal in the restaurant and even though I was already stuffed I insisted on one last dish of baklava with icecream. Was worth every calorie. Greg and I are contemplating investing in a Turkish cookbook once back at home!

Most excellent homemade lentil soup and a vege combo!

Baklava and neopolitan icecream! Doesn't really get any better than that...

Pretty Turkish lamps lit up the restaurant at night.

Funny 'stunned cat' appeared while we were eating.

Mehmet made sure our early transfer to the airport in the morning was all sorted, and we took ourselves off to bed nice and early ready for a 5.15am get up.

And thus concluded our last day in Turkey proper! Very sad to say goodbye!

Sunset from the balcony in our new room at the hotel!

Farewell Turkey!!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Pammukale

The morning started off well with another lovely rooftop breatkfast at the hotel. 

Our first port of call was the Otogar to book our bus tickets so we would know how much time we would have left in Selcuk. We knew there were issues with getting a bus that would go directly to Pammukale rather than stop and Denizli and charge again for a Pammukale transfer. The chap at the hotel desk recommended we take the 3.30pm bus as this was a direct service. We thanked him for his help and headed over to the bus station.We got to the Metro bus counter and sure enough there was a sign emphasising the times of their direct Pammukale services. So we purchased tickets feeling pretty pleased with how easy it was and went on our way. I was sure I'd read that the trip took about 2.5 – 3 hours. (This all becomes important later).

First stop was the ruins of St. John's Basilica. It seems the apostle John spent quite a bit of his life kicking around Ephesus, avoiding death by Romans, writing his gospel and taking care of Jesus' mother. When he died a monument was placed over his grave and later a basilica was built there by Emporer Constantine. Emperor Justinian went one better and built an even bigger Basilica on the site, and it was the ruins of this (broken by earthquakes and the like) that we went to visit.

You had to use your imagination quite a bit but several parts had been restored enough that the scale and beauty of the building in it's time was clear. The site of St. John's tomb (in the centre of the church) was well marked and roped off. There was also a good view of the fortress further up the hill and the Isa Bey Mosque below, complete with more storks. Randomly, the site also featured a few resident turtles!

Spot the turtle!

This wasn't the mosque stork, this one was up a power pole on the hill on the way to the basilica.

Next we checked out the Ephesus ('Efes') Museum in Selcuk. It was a small but interesting museum especially after being at the actual site the day before. Quite a few artifacts that had been removed from Ephesus itself resided here including the actual freize from hadrian's temple and two large statue of Artemis. There was also a model of what the temple of Artemis looked like in it's hey day – rather massive! At the site there was just one column left when the original temple seemed to have several hundred!

Above: some actual statues from a terraced house in Ephesus. Below: The photo of how these artifacts appeared when they were originally found by archeologists.

Must be difficult to get about the place... poor old Bes.

One of the statues of Artemis

The model of what the Temple of Artemis would have looked like.

Looking through the model you could see where the statue of Artemis would have stood.

The other, slightly smaller statue of Artemis. Greg was fascinated (something about the boobies)

More statues from Ephesus. Emporer Augustus and Livia above - later they were 'Christianised' by having crosses engraved into their foreheads. Below is the remains of what must have been a fairly massive statue of Emperor Hadrian.

When we were looking and the stuff outside, we made another kitty friend!

Once we had finishing looking through the museum we headed back to our favourite lunch spot from the day before (conveniently located right behind the museum) and enjoyed once again the friendly conversation, good cheap eats, and free wifi.

So much food! Always, so much food...

We still had heaps of time to kill before the bus so we went back to the hotel and made use of their lounge space and wifi. I worked on the blog (honestly I needn't have brought anything to do while in transit than this blog, it takes up all the time!) and Greg watched random Turkish TV including a show with videos of actual car crashes from all around the world. Just what you want to watch before going cross country on Turkish roads....

Finally it was time to go so we trundled off to the Otogar a few blocks away. It was a significant day in the Muslims calender today and we think that this was why there were men banging drums and playing Turkish flutes with a parade of people trailing behind as they walked through the streets. When we got their the man at the Metro office pointed at our waiting bus and so we hopped on it without thinking too much about the fact that the brand of bus was not actually metro. It did say Pammukale on it however. Later on Greg told me that when he handed the ticket to the guy he got back one with different seat numbers on it.

(The drum banging dancer crowd, photo taken from the bus)

The ultimate desitination of the drum banging parade seemed to be the Otogar as they all stopped right beside our bus and some men started dancing. We had seen a similar thing at an Otogar on the way to Cannakale. We were crammed into the very very back seats which wasn't great for Greg and his motion sickness, so I drugged him up.

The Story of the Part of our Turkey Trip That Was Less Fun...

We got on our way promptly and all seemed well. After 30 minutes though we were starting to scratch our heads a bit. Greg had his GPS going on his phone and we were not travelling in the direction of Pammukale, but were headed for Kusadasi. Over the next hour we drove on slow roads stopping at a bunch of towns for drop off and pick ups before finally getting on the Otoban (motorway) towards denizli, the main city 20minutes South of Pammukale.

The trip dragged on and after three hours it was clear that we were on a slow bus to Pammukale rather than a fast one. Direct? We thought. A group of Americans asked the bus attended how much longer, as they had been told the trip would take 3 hours but we were still at least an hour from our destination. Then they told us that they had earlier been told by the man at the ticket desk that their bus had been changed and that they would be given a ride from Denizli to Pammukale. For some reason I took this information on board without thinking that this would apply to us too.

Close to Denizli the bus stopped and the attended said something like 'stop here for Artemis'. So a couple of people got off. Then a man came through the bus saying 'change here for Pammukale'.. Oh! So the Americans and us all packed up our stuff and clambered off the bus (this was where I stopped writing the other day), but the bus attended reappeared saying no, no, not here for Pammukale so back on the bus we got. It was very odd and confusing.

Then finally (after over four hours) we must have got to the Denizli Otogar (still ages out of Denizli city). Everyone else got off the bus except for the Americans and us. So we all got off too. It was raining. The bus attendant said “wait here for another bus to Pammukale.” Well this certainly wasn't a direct service! But as long as they didn't try to charge us again we didn't mind. We got back on the bus to wait out of the rain. After a few minutes a man appeared at the door and called out “the group of four Aussies” The Americans looked at eachother “why does everyone keep thinking we are Aussies?” one girl mused, and off they got. Greg and I were the only ones left on the bus, thoroughly confused, so we got off as well.

Outside our bus attendant seemed to have disappeared and there were a bunch of Turkish men milling around talking in hurried voices. The Americans had been herded over to what seemed to be an ordinary car. Greg and I seemed to be more of a problem. For several minutes the Turkish guys argued and finally some money changed hands and a man said to us “you two come with me” he took my suitcase and we had little choice but to follow.

As we entered the terminal a man standing at the entrance looked at us with a strange expression and said in an American accent “Jesus loves you!”. Just to add to the oddness.

Another two Turkish men came along as well and they continued to talk and laugh together in Turkish. The man who spoke english asked us where we were staying and we told him. He said “Oh, you already booked? Where are you going after that?” We told him Barcelona. He seemed a little disappointed/annoyed. I began to vaguely recall some scams I had read about online... He said to us “What will happen is, we will take you to our office in Pammukale and you will wait there with us and we will ring your hotel to come and get you.” Sounding more and more like what I had read by the second... Greg asked if his office was in Pammukale proper and he assured us that it was, and Greg said we could probably walk ourselves to our hotel(we already knew our hotel was central and Pammukale was small). The guy shrugged. I just found it really random that we would need a pick up just to save us the walk of a few blocks, and I smelled at the least another fee being charged somewhere in the mix.

I was beginning to feel very uneasy about the whole thing, but it was happening rather fast. Our bags were put in the boot of a modern silver sedan and all five of us squashed up. The discussion/argument amongst the men in Turkish was ongoing and the Turk with english explained “we are arguing about the fastest way to get to get to Pammukale” but all I could think was “How do we know you're not arguing about who is going to get lion's share of our stuff after you murder us and leave us in a ditch somewhere? Surely if your office is in Pammukale you already know the fastest way anyway?”

Off we went, for better or worse. Greg was in the middle seat in the back and I was to his right sort of hiding behind my back pack so after a few minutes of anxiety about what to do I got out my GPS. Well, at least that confirmed that we actually seemed to be heading to Pammukale, which offered some relief. I was remembering those scams clearly now – where tourists get offered lifts then taken to travel agents where they are pressured into booking tours etc. I was praying that that was all this was, because from what I had read in these scenarios if you weren't interested in the tours you were able to say no and walk away. If it wasn't the case... well looking at the three beefy Turkish men in the car versus Greg and I, I didn't really like our chances...

Clutching my GPS for comfort and praying quite a lot, we hit the motorway to Pammukale. Fast. Greg told me later he could see on the speedo we went up to 135km/hr. I tossed up for a while whether or not to worry about looking like a wussy a foreigner putting on my seatbelt. I recalled the people I had seen in the ICU after car accidents and contemplated the various possibilities of death or a prolonged stay in a Turkish hospital... I put on my seatbelt. As for Greg who was stuck in the middle seat and couldn't put on his belt without it being really obvious and looking like he was critizing the driver... well I just prayed some more...

Eventually we got there, in one piece, but my nerves were frayed. We got out of the car, and our bags were returned to us. I could see on the map on my phone that we were maybe 5mins walk from our hotel. The man tried to insist that we wait in his office while he rung the hotel but we were adament that we were going to walk. “Where you going after this?” He asked us again as we were putting on our bags. “Barcelona, the airport.” We replied. We're too polite, and too honest, probably. “You need a transfer? Airport transfer?” we insisted that that was all already organised (it was) and we didn't need anything. The last thing I wanted was more transportation from this crowd...!We politely (if rather coldly, on my part anyway... I've discovered my manner is very cold when I am not comfortable with the situation...) thanked them and got away as fast as we could.

Reflections...

In hindsight I think their motives were fairly straightforward. Given that they took us directly to Pammukale and never asked us for any more money I have to assume that it was all above board after all. I think they were acutally affliated or in the pay of the bus company and using their own car rather than a whole bus for six tourists (as I assume the 4 Americans had a similar experience) was more of a convenience factor for them. The speed and trying to get to Pamukkale post haste was potentially because the bus had been so far behind schedule, and for the Americans at least time was a factor because they were taking the night bus to Cappadocia. Perhaps they assumed that we were similarly in a hurry? Finally, the bonus of potential add on sales was not an oppurtunity they were going to pass up.

To their credit I suspect the man who had some english picked up on our discomfort towards the end and that's why he didn't push the point too much. This is written with two days perspective - at the time I was simply extremely stressed and frightened by the lack of explanation as to how our 'direct to Pammukale' bus had turned into a four hour long crawl followed by a car ride with three strangers at break neck speed. Greg and I agreed that we should have been more assertive and asked more questions at the changeover, but I'll reiterate how fast it all happened and quickly we were herded, and it was not by any means what we had been expecting. Anyhow, you live and learn, as long as you're lucky enough to live!

We didn't say much on the way to the hotel but I told Greg what I'd heard about regarding the scams to try and sell tours etc. and the suspicions I had been harbouring the whole trip. Able to talk freely at last it was clear we had both been worried but I suspect I had been panicking a bit more than Greg.

Finally safely in Pammukale...

First impressions of Pammukale in the drizzling rain were not great, the road we chose was a rather dingy one full of run down houses and disparate folks sitting or wandering aimlessly. A shuttle pulled up and asked where we were going – bad timing – we were probably almost rude in our rush to not be 'helped' by any strangers at that moment! Our frame of mind was rather suspicious – we felt as though we had arrived in Scammukale rather than Pammukale after the relative friendliness and straight up-ness of everywhere else.

We arrived at the hotel after 8pm as the rain begain to pour. There was an outdoor restaurant built into the front of the hotel but in the dark with the rain was running in rivers throught the gaps in the timber/fabric shelter it was not as lovely on first sight as it might have been. There was an indoor part to it as well, where hungry hotel guests were enjoying post dinner drinks and relaxing. We had to hail the young waiter to indicate that we wanted to check in and we were almost instantly attended to by a lovely smiling Turkish lady with good English.

But then second 'almost disaster' occurred – no record of our booking. I showed her the print out of the email which included several back-and-forths between Mehmet (the owner) and myself. She agreed that we should have a booking... Mehmet himself appeared and he read the email and said “Ah yes, I remember this...” But unfortunately still that didn't make a booking magically appear. But they promised that we wouldn't go roomless and it did mean that whatever room we now ended up with, we had a guaranteed price!

Mehmet placed us in a large double room which was beautifully decorated although Greg found the Lilac coloured everything (duvet, curtains, ceiling) a little off putting. I was amazed at his ability to criticise the décor when I was merely happy we were alive and had a room for the night out of the rain!! 

We spent a while taking stock and recovering our wits then headed down to have tea. And a wine. I was very much in need of a wine. If they hadn't been a criminal 10 lira per glass, I would have had two... Dinner itself was delicious with the typical Turkish enormous portion sizes. Greg and I looked at our food and wondered how we were going to eat so much with our nervous tummies, but once we started we seemed to have little difficulty polishing it all off! The meal was on the expensive side compared with where we'd come from but we later found the prices to be about right for Pammukale and the food of superior quality! We decided Pammukale, from a price perspective compared with the rest of Turkey, was like Queenstown. Small tourist town miles from anywhere, price of food can be high because what are you gonna do about it?

Dinner consumed and nerves slightly settled we headed to bed. Tomorrow would be a new day and we would remember again that Turkey is a fabulous place with lovely people!

(When we went up to bed there was a friend kitty on the stairs!!)

(Greg looking very sweet tucked up in the lilac bed...)