Monday, July 12, 2004
Part 2 - Asia at last
Pamukkale is a village of two streets, entirely catering to the tourists who come to climb the surreal snow-white terraced pools of faux travertine and then to hike among the Roman ruins of Hieropolis. My pension is a startlingly clean, inviting little motel-style structure with rooms opening out onto a shallow blue swimming pool.
Haçer, the wife of the owner, greets me with a dazzling smile and insists that I sit in the open-air restaurant upstairs and have a “welcome tea” as she inundates me with guidebooks about the area and apologizes repeatedly for the excessively onerous demands of the government as she ask me to please, if it’s not too much trouble, write my name and passport number in the hotel register.
All the while, I can see the travertine pools behind her, like snow-caps in the desert. And it feels like the desert. She suggests that the next activity should be a nap, because it’s too hot to enjoy the sights. And it is hot. Very, very hot. But I explain that while I may look English, I was raised in Texas and I can take the heat. She smiles and says that at least I should have another drink to cope. Naturally it’s a cup of scalding hot tea.
I describe my plan for the next two days, and instantly she sets my plans into motion. She has two sons, and they’re summoned to the restaurant and given their orders: one son is dispatched to buy me a bus ticket for the next stage of my journey (a 3-hour ride to Selcuk). Another boy disappears to arrange for my tour of Aphrodisias the next day.
As I wait, we chat a little, and I learn the source of the charmingly simple e-mail reservation replies: her sons. The children learn English in school, so they write the e-mails and run the computer. In fact, it’s the enterprising 15-year-old that suggested they instigate e-mail reservations in the first place. And so I have him to thank. When I asked K to read through the guidebooks and find the best sounding hotels, she later confessed to just contacting the few that had e-mail and then booked the ones that responded. And so far I like her choice. Haçer asks what my business is in America: “Computers?” I tell her no and explain that I’m a writer. She immediately asks, “Travel writer?” and I tell her again, no, my trip to Turkey is just a vacation to visit my wife.
Of course this prompts Haçer to ask for a picture of K, which I don’t have. I never do. And it’s foolish, because as in nearly every other country I visit, this is always the first question. “You have a wife! Show me photo?” This isn’t like Egypt, though. For the longest time K carried a picture of me and wore a fake wedding ring – just to “prove” that she wasn’t single. There’s no intimidation here, just a sincere curiosity.
The sons are still off doing their mother’s bidding on my behalf, so I try some of my questionable theories and observations on the chatty Haçer: First, that the Turkish mosques all seem very laid back: she says, “oh yes. I am a good Muslim, but I do not go to the mosque. I do not cover my head. Turkey is very European. Very modern.” I point out that Egypt is a “modern” “secular” state, but that visiting mosques there can be a very solemn affair. She starts in on Iran, saying “I think Egypt is more Muslim, but Iran... They are too much.” This brings her to the subject of Egypt, though: “How do you find Egypt? I think Egypt very dirty, yes?” I have to agree. I tell her my friends are amazed at how clean Turkey has become. “Yes,” she says, “we are now a very modern country. Very clean. Very friendly.” And from the immaculate state of her middle-of-nowhere pension, it seems she’s right.
She attributes all of this to the obvious influence of the revered Atatürk. “He was the best man. I love Atatürk. I love my husband, my children, and Atatürk.” I glance around, and am shocked not to see a portrait of the great man. I teasingly point out that hers is the first restaurant without a picture of Mustafa. She hangs her head in embarrassment and starts to make excuses but I stop her quickly – I have no photo of K, she has no photo of Atatürk. We're even.
The number 2 son returns with a ticket agent in tow. Full service delivery – a bus ticket all made out for one of the premiere bus-lines – coincidentally called Pamukkale. A report comes via phone from the other son: a minibus tour to Aphrodisias will pick me up the next morning at 9:30AM - all is good. I can’t help but feel that I’m getting the 4-star service missing at our "real" 4-star hotel in Istanbul.
----
I have no specific directions to the Travertine Pools, but they loom over the village, so I just walk in that general direction. As I get close, I make out a black line running diagonally across the shining white cliffs, and realize this is a stream of humanity, running counter to gravity, hiking up as the water trickles down. There’s a little goat-trail leading from one of the many bus-filled parking-lots up to the lower pools, so I trek up in my sandals, inadvertently by-passing the ticket booth and in so doing, start to make up the financial deficit created by my unscheduled taxi ride.
The cliff, really a series of terraced pools lined with hard, white, calcified mineral deposits, has been a tourist-trap since Roman times. But recently the water has run dry, the geology has become delicate, and so now tourists must tip-toe along the jagged path in bare feet. Fair enough. I tie my Teva’s to my backpack and start the hike up.
Clearly this is a day-trip kind of place. The village was nearly deserted, but now droves of tourists clog the way: French, German, Italian, Eastern European, Japanese, Korean… Most in swimsuits, many sporting nearly indecent bikini’s, paddling in the pools (which, like photography in the museums, is a posted rule that is consistently broken and apparently never enforced). “Photo! Photo! Photo!” is the cry as all the bathers pose for pictures, sitting awkwardly on the jagged pebbles, trying to look gracefully submerged in three inches of water.
At the top, there are panoramic vistas to the left, and the ancient city of Hieropolis to the right. Until a few years ago, the top was lined with motels, but they’ve been closed and torn down to hopefully arrest the damage to the pools. One building remains, surrounding what was in ancient times the sacred center of Apollo’s temple, the Termal Pool. This is the other post-card shot – an impossibly clear swimming hole with Roman columns littered about the bottom.
I resist the urge to take a dip (at a rate of $5.00 for two hours) and hike up into the hills above to explore the ruins.
--- -
It’s getting late, and the tour busses are starting to round up their passengers and head down the hill. A few groups remain in the spectacular Roman Theater, a semi-circular amphitheater with the hills across the valley as a magical backdrop for its stage. The excavations here are by an Italian university, and they performed heavy restoration on the theater, including re-surfacing much of the marble work. It looks spectacular, and it’s telling that nearly every tourist’s photo centers on an area of the theater that’s been completely reconstructed. The parts that are the most photographed are the parts that are most restored.
This is unwelcome evidence to most archaeologists, fighting governments like Egypt who are obsessed with re-creations and restoration. For posterity it may be best to leave only the ruined foundations, and post a little sign with an artist’s rendering of past glory. But clearly for the tourists, they’d rather see the “real” thing.
----
I venture further up the hill, past the theater and into tangled weeds and scrub. Sandals aren’t really the best footwear for this sort of exploring, but up here the tourists are out of sight, and golden hour is at it’s most luminous. The crumbling temples and lone standing columns cast long, black shadows as lizards and finches scurry about at my feet.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t stop. The map shows an unusual octagonal Chapel of St. Philip over the next little hill, so I scramble down into a gully, up another hill, and finally reach the set of eight arches, each marked with a chiseled Maltese cross.
There’s a timeless sort of isolation here, except that I’m not alone.
“Camera! Camera!” I hear someone calling in the distance in a thick accent, as I shoot video of the sun setting behind the ruins. “Camera! CAMERA!”
Suddenly a woman appears, veiled in filthy blue rags and jangling with jewelry. I have no idea what she’s supposed to be. Maybe Roma? Gypsy? Kurd? She’s young, but her face is leathery and creased. “Muneefoto! Muneefoto!” she shouts at me repeatedly. Once I realize she’s saying, “Money Photo,” and take this to mean that she’s offering me the chance to pay to take her photo, I politely decline. But she’s not giving up. “Muneefoto! Photo! Coins?” She holds out a handful of the “aged” coins that are sold at all the Turkish ruins, modern coins oxidized and buried to appear aged.
I try to shake her, but she follows me through the ruin. This isn’t the friendly chiding of a beggar child. Her offers are almost antagonistic, and I realize I’m a long way from anywhere, completely alone. I’m not worried about her, but I wonder who else is lurking over the next hill. I make out the silhouette of a boy a few hundred yards away, watching us. Accomplice or witness?
Fortunately, another adventurous couple has wandered up to pay tribute to St. Philip. The MoneyPhoto girl latches onto them immediately, and they seem much more interested in a transaction.
But the thrill is gone for me. I head back down the hill. The sun’s setting anyway. And dinner will be waiting at the pension.
----
On the way down I catch a little clue that not all is perfect in the "new" Turkey. Some things never change. I’m making my way back down the pools, barefoot, when the “guard” of the pools stomps past me in black Reeboks. The flow of water has stopped rather suspiciously, but a few little puddles remain. He tosses a cigarette butt casually behind him into a now dry pool.
----
I was worried I might be a little late, arriving for dinner at 9:30, but no problem. Everyone in Turkey seems to eat late. Again, my kind of place. Haçer is in the back cooking. She cooks, she cleans, she registers the guest and plays concierge – I wonder what her husband, the owner, does. But she has her sons to help her. They have June 15 through September 15 off from school – in part because it’s too hot to lock the children away – but it also conveniently coincides with the tourist season. The children are free to help their parents with the busy time of year, harkening back to the origins of summer vacation, when the children were released to help with the harvest.
After an excellent meal of sautéed vegetables, rice and fruit, I sit in the open-air restaurant on the hotel roof, across from another lone traveler, a young Frenchman named Philippe. He’s scribbling in a little notebook while I type this blog on my PDA. We’re each respecting the other’s need for solitary productivity.
But the problem with having a tiny little computer with a flashy folding keyboard is that it gets attention. And so it’s only a few minutes before Haçer comes over and asks about it. “This is a computer? You’re good with computers I think.” I offer a noncommittal nod. “I was thinking,” she muses, “maybe later, not now but later, you would please to write e-mail? My English not so good” Sure. I’m a native English speaker and a writer at that. Makes sense.
“Let’s do it now.” I say. I’ve got my blog to finish and want to be free of obligations.
I decipher a few random English e-mails for her on their old computer, and compose a few “charmingly simple” responses to requests for reservations. No problem. 30 minutes that seems to make everyone very happy. I’m glad to help.
----
Just as I return to my little computer, the owner, Omer, arrives. He greats me heartily and sits down for what I can already tell will be a long talk. His English is broken, but his enthusiasm knows no bounds.
We talk religion. World politics. Local politics. He offers a long discourse on the frustration of a two versus three party coalition in Ankara. I don’t really have much to add to this part of the conversation. It seems to vaguely touch on plans to re-vitalize the travertine pools, and ends with the apt conclusion that in all things people are not a problem, money is not a problem, only politics is a problem.
This of course leads directly to American politics. I’m speaking with a man who isn’t really sure if California is its own country, but he knows exactly where Florida is. And what it meant. Omer was a Gore man. “Everyday,” he says, “I watch on the TV. Many weeks. Bush. Gore. Bush. Gore… Bush. Politics… Florida.” He tells me with a psychiatrist’s diagnostic certainty that “Bush is crazy. See only petrol.” I try to add a little complexity to the assessment, but then quickly decide to just sit back and let him explain. “Clinton was good. Monica good. Bush crazy.”
I mange to steer him back to local events. He tells me, "Some people come to Pamukkale and say it is beautiful. This their first time. You see today. You think beautiful. I see - 42 years. I know Pamukkale dead." The pools are drying up. The visitors stop coming. Business is bad.
This somehow leads directly to what I sense has been the true purpose of his conversation all along: Guide Books. Omer is enormously proud of his endorsement in guide books, especially Lonely Planet, which, I tell him, is how I found his pension on the first place. It has a very favorable listing that mentions Haçer and her cooking by name.
But, he points out, something has gone amiss. In the 1999 edition, the entry was slightly longer, and something was cut for the 2001 reprint. He points to my 2003 copy, indicates that I should pick it up, and then leads me to a framed copy of the 1999 listing, hanging on his wall. (Probably where Atatürk should be hanging.) He has me compare the texts as a teacher would a student. I study them carefully. And he’s right. There is a subtle difference: the words "readers heartily recommend" have been cut. He claims his business has dropped heartily ever since… the power of three little words. At least in the world of Omer.
But there is hope! Pat Yale, chief editor of Lonely Planet Turkey, is visiting in 25 days, and Omer’s clearly been practicing his spiel. He next takes me to his desk, where he has xerox copies of every listing of his pension in every travel book ever published. One after another he presents them to me: From England. From Germany. Korea. Japan. Holland. Australia. On and on and on. All the various editions. Pride of place goes to the books in which only his pension is mentioned for all of Pamukkale. But the most important, he says, is Lonely Planet. It seems very important that I understand all this. And the more he asks "You understand?" the more I hear "Will Pat Yale understand? Will she feel my pain?"
|
Haçer, the wife of the owner, greets me with a dazzling smile and insists that I sit in the open-air restaurant upstairs and have a “welcome tea” as she inundates me with guidebooks about the area and apologizes repeatedly for the excessively onerous demands of the government as she ask me to please, if it’s not too much trouble, write my name and passport number in the hotel register.
All the while, I can see the travertine pools behind her, like snow-caps in the desert. And it feels like the desert. She suggests that the next activity should be a nap, because it’s too hot to enjoy the sights. And it is hot. Very, very hot. But I explain that while I may look English, I was raised in Texas and I can take the heat. She smiles and says that at least I should have another drink to cope. Naturally it’s a cup of scalding hot tea.
I describe my plan for the next two days, and instantly she sets my plans into motion. She has two sons, and they’re summoned to the restaurant and given their orders: one son is dispatched to buy me a bus ticket for the next stage of my journey (a 3-hour ride to Selcuk). Another boy disappears to arrange for my tour of Aphrodisias the next day.
As I wait, we chat a little, and I learn the source of the charmingly simple e-mail reservation replies: her sons. The children learn English in school, so they write the e-mails and run the computer. In fact, it’s the enterprising 15-year-old that suggested they instigate e-mail reservations in the first place. And so I have him to thank. When I asked K to read through the guidebooks and find the best sounding hotels, she later confessed to just contacting the few that had e-mail and then booked the ones that responded. And so far I like her choice. Haçer asks what my business is in America: “Computers?” I tell her no and explain that I’m a writer. She immediately asks, “Travel writer?” and I tell her again, no, my trip to Turkey is just a vacation to visit my wife.
Of course this prompts Haçer to ask for a picture of K, which I don’t have. I never do. And it’s foolish, because as in nearly every other country I visit, this is always the first question. “You have a wife! Show me photo?” This isn’t like Egypt, though. For the longest time K carried a picture of me and wore a fake wedding ring – just to “prove” that she wasn’t single. There’s no intimidation here, just a sincere curiosity.
The sons are still off doing their mother’s bidding on my behalf, so I try some of my questionable theories and observations on the chatty Haçer: First, that the Turkish mosques all seem very laid back: she says, “oh yes. I am a good Muslim, but I do not go to the mosque. I do not cover my head. Turkey is very European. Very modern.” I point out that Egypt is a “modern” “secular” state, but that visiting mosques there can be a very solemn affair. She starts in on Iran, saying “I think Egypt is more Muslim, but Iran... They are too much.” This brings her to the subject of Egypt, though: “How do you find Egypt? I think Egypt very dirty, yes?” I have to agree. I tell her my friends are amazed at how clean Turkey has become. “Yes,” she says, “we are now a very modern country. Very clean. Very friendly.” And from the immaculate state of her middle-of-nowhere pension, it seems she’s right.
She attributes all of this to the obvious influence of the revered Atatürk. “He was the best man. I love Atatürk. I love my husband, my children, and Atatürk.” I glance around, and am shocked not to see a portrait of the great man. I teasingly point out that hers is the first restaurant without a picture of Mustafa. She hangs her head in embarrassment and starts to make excuses but I stop her quickly – I have no photo of K, she has no photo of Atatürk. We're even.
The number 2 son returns with a ticket agent in tow. Full service delivery – a bus ticket all made out for one of the premiere bus-lines – coincidentally called Pamukkale. A report comes via phone from the other son: a minibus tour to Aphrodisias will pick me up the next morning at 9:30AM - all is good. I can’t help but feel that I’m getting the 4-star service missing at our "real" 4-star hotel in Istanbul.
----
I have no specific directions to the Travertine Pools, but they loom over the village, so I just walk in that general direction. As I get close, I make out a black line running diagonally across the shining white cliffs, and realize this is a stream of humanity, running counter to gravity, hiking up as the water trickles down. There’s a little goat-trail leading from one of the many bus-filled parking-lots up to the lower pools, so I trek up in my sandals, inadvertently by-passing the ticket booth and in so doing, start to make up the financial deficit created by my unscheduled taxi ride.
The cliff, really a series of terraced pools lined with hard, white, calcified mineral deposits, has been a tourist-trap since Roman times. But recently the water has run dry, the geology has become delicate, and so now tourists must tip-toe along the jagged path in bare feet. Fair enough. I tie my Teva’s to my backpack and start the hike up.
Clearly this is a day-trip kind of place. The village was nearly deserted, but now droves of tourists clog the way: French, German, Italian, Eastern European, Japanese, Korean… Most in swimsuits, many sporting nearly indecent bikini’s, paddling in the pools (which, like photography in the museums, is a posted rule that is consistently broken and apparently never enforced). “Photo! Photo! Photo!” is the cry as all the bathers pose for pictures, sitting awkwardly on the jagged pebbles, trying to look gracefully submerged in three inches of water.
At the top, there are panoramic vistas to the left, and the ancient city of Hieropolis to the right. Until a few years ago, the top was lined with motels, but they’ve been closed and torn down to hopefully arrest the damage to the pools. One building remains, surrounding what was in ancient times the sacred center of Apollo’s temple, the Termal Pool. This is the other post-card shot – an impossibly clear swimming hole with Roman columns littered about the bottom.
I resist the urge to take a dip (at a rate of $5.00 for two hours) and hike up into the hills above to explore the ruins.
--- -
It’s getting late, and the tour busses are starting to round up their passengers and head down the hill. A few groups remain in the spectacular Roman Theater, a semi-circular amphitheater with the hills across the valley as a magical backdrop for its stage. The excavations here are by an Italian university, and they performed heavy restoration on the theater, including re-surfacing much of the marble work. It looks spectacular, and it’s telling that nearly every tourist’s photo centers on an area of the theater that’s been completely reconstructed. The parts that are the most photographed are the parts that are most restored.
This is unwelcome evidence to most archaeologists, fighting governments like Egypt who are obsessed with re-creations and restoration. For posterity it may be best to leave only the ruined foundations, and post a little sign with an artist’s rendering of past glory. But clearly for the tourists, they’d rather see the “real” thing.
----
I venture further up the hill, past the theater and into tangled weeds and scrub. Sandals aren’t really the best footwear for this sort of exploring, but up here the tourists are out of sight, and golden hour is at it’s most luminous. The crumbling temples and lone standing columns cast long, black shadows as lizards and finches scurry about at my feet.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t stop. The map shows an unusual octagonal Chapel of St. Philip over the next little hill, so I scramble down into a gully, up another hill, and finally reach the set of eight arches, each marked with a chiseled Maltese cross.
There’s a timeless sort of isolation here, except that I’m not alone.
“Camera! Camera!” I hear someone calling in the distance in a thick accent, as I shoot video of the sun setting behind the ruins. “Camera! CAMERA!”
Suddenly a woman appears, veiled in filthy blue rags and jangling with jewelry. I have no idea what she’s supposed to be. Maybe Roma? Gypsy? Kurd? She’s young, but her face is leathery and creased. “Muneefoto! Muneefoto!” she shouts at me repeatedly. Once I realize she’s saying, “Money Photo,” and take this to mean that she’s offering me the chance to pay to take her photo, I politely decline. But she’s not giving up. “Muneefoto! Photo! Coins?” She holds out a handful of the “aged” coins that are sold at all the Turkish ruins, modern coins oxidized and buried to appear aged.
I try to shake her, but she follows me through the ruin. This isn’t the friendly chiding of a beggar child. Her offers are almost antagonistic, and I realize I’m a long way from anywhere, completely alone. I’m not worried about her, but I wonder who else is lurking over the next hill. I make out the silhouette of a boy a few hundred yards away, watching us. Accomplice or witness?
Fortunately, another adventurous couple has wandered up to pay tribute to St. Philip. The MoneyPhoto girl latches onto them immediately, and they seem much more interested in a transaction.
But the thrill is gone for me. I head back down the hill. The sun’s setting anyway. And dinner will be waiting at the pension.
----
On the way down I catch a little clue that not all is perfect in the "new" Turkey. Some things never change. I’m making my way back down the pools, barefoot, when the “guard” of the pools stomps past me in black Reeboks. The flow of water has stopped rather suspiciously, but a few little puddles remain. He tosses a cigarette butt casually behind him into a now dry pool.
----
I was worried I might be a little late, arriving for dinner at 9:30, but no problem. Everyone in Turkey seems to eat late. Again, my kind of place. Haçer is in the back cooking. She cooks, she cleans, she registers the guest and plays concierge – I wonder what her husband, the owner, does. But she has her sons to help her. They have June 15 through September 15 off from school – in part because it’s too hot to lock the children away – but it also conveniently coincides with the tourist season. The children are free to help their parents with the busy time of year, harkening back to the origins of summer vacation, when the children were released to help with the harvest.
After an excellent meal of sautéed vegetables, rice and fruit, I sit in the open-air restaurant on the hotel roof, across from another lone traveler, a young Frenchman named Philippe. He’s scribbling in a little notebook while I type this blog on my PDA. We’re each respecting the other’s need for solitary productivity.
But the problem with having a tiny little computer with a flashy folding keyboard is that it gets attention. And so it’s only a few minutes before Haçer comes over and asks about it. “This is a computer? You’re good with computers I think.” I offer a noncommittal nod. “I was thinking,” she muses, “maybe later, not now but later, you would please to write e-mail? My English not so good” Sure. I’m a native English speaker and a writer at that. Makes sense.
“Let’s do it now.” I say. I’ve got my blog to finish and want to be free of obligations.
I decipher a few random English e-mails for her on their old computer, and compose a few “charmingly simple” responses to requests for reservations. No problem. 30 minutes that seems to make everyone very happy. I’m glad to help.
----
Just as I return to my little computer, the owner, Omer, arrives. He greats me heartily and sits down for what I can already tell will be a long talk. His English is broken, but his enthusiasm knows no bounds.
We talk religion. World politics. Local politics. He offers a long discourse on the frustration of a two versus three party coalition in Ankara. I don’t really have much to add to this part of the conversation. It seems to vaguely touch on plans to re-vitalize the travertine pools, and ends with the apt conclusion that in all things people are not a problem, money is not a problem, only politics is a problem.
This of course leads directly to American politics. I’m speaking with a man who isn’t really sure if California is its own country, but he knows exactly where Florida is. And what it meant. Omer was a Gore man. “Everyday,” he says, “I watch on the TV. Many weeks. Bush. Gore. Bush. Gore… Bush. Politics… Florida.” He tells me with a psychiatrist’s diagnostic certainty that “Bush is crazy. See only petrol.” I try to add a little complexity to the assessment, but then quickly decide to just sit back and let him explain. “Clinton was good. Monica good. Bush crazy.”
I mange to steer him back to local events. He tells me, "Some people come to Pamukkale and say it is beautiful. This their first time. You see today. You think beautiful. I see - 42 years. I know Pamukkale dead." The pools are drying up. The visitors stop coming. Business is bad.
This somehow leads directly to what I sense has been the true purpose of his conversation all along: Guide Books. Omer is enormously proud of his endorsement in guide books, especially Lonely Planet, which, I tell him, is how I found his pension on the first place. It has a very favorable listing that mentions Haçer and her cooking by name.
But, he points out, something has gone amiss. In the 1999 edition, the entry was slightly longer, and something was cut for the 2001 reprint. He points to my 2003 copy, indicates that I should pick it up, and then leads me to a framed copy of the 1999 listing, hanging on his wall. (Probably where Atatürk should be hanging.) He has me compare the texts as a teacher would a student. I study them carefully. And he’s right. There is a subtle difference: the words "readers heartily recommend" have been cut. He claims his business has dropped heartily ever since… the power of three little words. At least in the world of Omer.
But there is hope! Pat Yale, chief editor of Lonely Planet Turkey, is visiting in 25 days, and Omer’s clearly been practicing his spiel. He next takes me to his desk, where he has xerox copies of every listing of his pension in every travel book ever published. One after another he presents them to me: From England. From Germany. Korea. Japan. Holland. Australia. On and on and on. All the various editions. Pride of place goes to the books in which only his pension is mentioned for all of Pamukkale. But the most important, he says, is Lonely Planet. It seems very important that I understand all this. And the more he asks "You understand?" the more I hear "Will Pat Yale understand? Will she feel my pain?"
|
