Straggler in Turkey

Returned to the pension to bid my farewells... The Belgian girls and my companion for the past two days, Sam, all came back at 4:30 to say goodbye. They all sat around in anticipation as Oya and Laura brought out the guestbook: "You must sign. You are a writer. It will be very good what you write."

Pressure.

I managed to scribble a few things down, then observed that my train would be leaving in 30 minutes, and I still had to hike down to the other side of town. Oya was cooking the evening meal, dashing back and forth from the kitchen to wish me goodbye again and again and again. "Oh Jesus - good bye. I pray for you good trip. Oh Jesus. You are my brother. I will lose my brother. Oh my Jesus."

A pot of cooking water still in Oya’s hand, she led the others as they followed me down the four flights of stairs, from the roof terrace to the street.

Again, more goodbyes. More sweet Jesus. And then I realized, the pot of water was for me. "I am so sad for you to go. Go, and I will pray for you and miss you and oh Jesus, etc, etc, etc." And then she reminded me of the Turkish custom, which I'd heard of but never seen, that throwing water behind someone departing on a trip will bring them good luck and a safe passage. (I think at some hotels this has become the equivalent of the lei in Hawaii, and it's now just part of the check-out ritual: pay bill, tip bell-boy, have water thrown at you) but I'd seen about 20 people come and go at the pension, and no-one had water hurled after them.

So, I turned and started to leave (the tossing must be at your back). Sam pragmatically suggested I walk very fast, so as not to be soaked. I heard the water splash down on the cobblestones behind me and turned to wave a last farewell.

It was such a warm send-off, I bounced down the hill towards town – and when I looked back as I turned the corner, they were all still standing there waving good-bye. 40 pounds of backpack weighing me down, but felt I could walk happily for miles.

And I did walk for about a kilometer, to get to the train station. Bending down to peer through the tiny little ticket window (for some reason set waist-high), I spotted my friendly conductor sitting exactly as he was 7 hours before. "Merhaba."

"Merhaba." he responded cheerfully.

"Five thirty train to Izmir airport? Bir tani bilet, lütven." (I'm getting quite brazen in my use of Turkish.) I didn't really expect the agent to get up and toss water after my train, but I certainly didn't expect him to say, "Sorry. Train late."

Fortunately, I'd factored in an extra hour for just such a snag. “Oh. How late?” I asked.

"Maybe come by 7:45."

My flight leaves at 8:30. Not good. Cleary the water-luck doesn't kick in immediately.

So, my pack feeling heavier by the minute, I hiked to the other side of town, to the otogar, to catch the bus - my predetermined "Plan B."

I had a Plan B because as much as I wanted to take the train, I'd heard they weren't so reliable. Why take the train in the first place? Because it actually goes to the airport.

The "airport bus" - depending on who you ask - drops you off anywhere from 1.5km to 5km from the airport.

I arrived breathless at the otogar, announced to the cluster of men standing around: "Izmir airport autobus, lutven." and they leapt into action. Before I could ask where it would drop me or if they really knew I meant the airport and not the city, they motioned for me to run after them, stopped a bus that was already backing into the parking lot, tossed my bag into the back, and pushed me onboard.

I relaxed a little when we turned in the direction of Izmir. The mini-bus was packed, and for once I really felt I was the only foreigner. To the last man (and woman), everyone else was unmistakably Turkish. The young conductor buzzed up and down the tiny aisle, writing-out tickets and inquiring about destinations. Everyone was headed somewhere different. But when I announced "Izmir AIRPORT" he nodded, smiled and charged me beş million lira. I felt more than a little reassured. He seemed to be well on top of things.

My fellow passengers (mostly men) were either going home - dropped off in little villages alongside the motorway (strange to think of a tiny town like Selcuk having suburbs, but I guess it does) or else they on their way to work - at factories and lumber yards just outside of town. But people nodded and smiled at me, watching out to make sure I was looked after. The conductor dutifully announced each impending stop to the appropriate passengers. It was a full-service dolmush, to be sure. (And since I'd expected to be on a train, I had no "bus expectations" to overcome.)

I felt even better when the airport control tower came into view. There were only a few people left on the bus at this point, and I still had two hours until my flight. Perfect.

Except that was weren't getting over to the outside lane. We weren't taking the airport exit. But that's OK. I'd been warned. Might be a few kilometers, even.

But we were still going. And the flip-side of that all-Turk/very-authentic bus experience is that real Turks riding real Turkish buses tend to speak Turkish. And "Hello, may I have two diet-cokes please?" wasn't really a phrase that was up to the current challenge.

I pointed and asked "Airport, evet?" And the conductor nodded, then one nice man, with a baby in his arms and his wife in the next seat over, explained in broken English that I should get off, cross the highway and take a taxi. The man behind him nodded. Two other men waved their fingers and indicated this was clearly the wrong thing to do. They then began to debate aggressively in Turkish, pointing back and forth between me and the dwindling airport control tower.

The conductor asked what time my flight left. I lied and said 8:00 (really it was 8:30). Instantly, a consensus was reached. The tension and urgency was relieved; everyone relaxed and decided I should stay on the bus. Apparently I had allowed more travel time than the average Turk could ever imagine.

The airport was miles away now, and would be growing even more distant if we hadn't just hit the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Izmir. The bus emptied completely. I was left alone with the ever-smiling conductor and the focused driver. I figured, worst case scenario, I could get off in Izmir and get an airport shuttle from there. Assuming there was one.

But just as I'd abandoned hope, the bus spun around, started heading back to Selçuk and thus, to the airport.

In the end they dropped me off at the side of the motorway where the man and his baby had suggested I disembark in the first place, and the whole 20-minute detour was just to keep me from having to cross the road with my bag. But I had the time, so it was fine.

Except that the taxi driver dropped me at the International Terminal - Even though I told him I was going to Istanbul (that's about as far as our idle-chatter got). Not a problem in most airports, and certainly not a little regional one like Izmir. Except that the domestic terminal is clear across the tarmac - and you have to walk all the way around the end of the runway – 500 meters.

So I do, and still arrive before any self-respecting Turk would show his face in the terminal for an 8:30 flight. All is well.

----

Ismir airport is nothing like Denizli – much larger, much more infrastructure, like a regional airport in the U.S. We ride out to our planes in shuttle busses, and squeezed up beside me is a little old European lady, stylishly dressed, joking broadly with several Turkish business men. In fact, nearly everyone on this flight seems like a business man. Unlike my chaotic flight from Amsterdam, loaded with families visiting friends (probably in Germany) and people who clearly don’t fly much, this is obviously a businessman’s commuter flight. Domestic air travel is still a novelty in Turkey, as most people take the night-buses. Only the rich or indulgent would fly. Two adjectives often ascribed to yours truly.

The Little Old Lady has switched to a heavily accented English, as have the business men. They ask how her Turkish can be so good, and she explains that she was Spain’s ambassador to Turkey in the 70’s. Now she’s just touring the country that she hasn’t been back to for 20 years. This draws a crowd within a crowd (we’re already jam-packed into the standing-room-only shuttle bus) as everyone asks the same question: how do you find Turkey now? Has it changed?

“Yes,” she says without hesitation, “I find it has changed very much for the better. I can hardly recognize it, and it is a country that I love.”

The men all smile contently. “We work very hard to improve Turkey.” one adds. “It is good that you can see this.”

Again, this notion of change. A desperation to be part of the “first world” – a need to be seen as improving, as modernizing.

----

I sit beside two large businessmen in suits and ties. But they still order their Pepsi without hesitation. It’s a short flight (less than an hour) so the flight crew bustles along the aisle, trying to get the cheese sandwiches served before our descent begins.

But they’re being hampered by a woman tele-journalist - all blonde hair and a turquoise blue pants-suit – and her tag-along cameraman wielding a Sony DSR PD-150 with a massive boom microphone as big as the camera. The sterilizing sun-gun light fires up and they begin an in-flight interview a few rows behind me. At first I think it might be the convivial Spanish ambassador, praising even rural Turkey’s march of progress, but when I crane my neck up and look back, I can see it’s just another heavy-set business man. He doesn’t seem to be cooperating.

The camera crew heads back to first class, squeezing past the stewardess. It’s astonishing how quickly her accommodating smile morphs into icy derision the moment they pass. She complains in Turkish to man beside me.

She asks me what I’d like to drink, and while I order in Turkish, I ask for water, clearly giving up the ruse of my local allegiance.

Again the camera crew presses their way back. Again the stewardess smiles and then shoots daggers. She tosses the last of the cheese sandwiches to the row behind as the captain announces our imminent arrival in Istanbul.

Beneath us, the pitch black of the Sea of Marmara.

----

When we land, there’s no clapping, no celebration. No sense of novelty or relief. Just the work-a-day sighs of business men returned home. The only shocking behavior I witness just as the jammed stream of passengers finally begins to move towards the cabin door – several men pick up their airline-provided blankets, press them to their faces, and deposit as much mucus as humanly possible in as noisy a manner as I’ve ever seen.

And I’ve been told in Turkey it’s considered rude to blow one’s nose in public.

Some weary traveler is going to snuggle up to that blanket tomorrow. I only hope they’re laundered after each flight.

----

As I step off the plane, a mass of reporters clog the jetway – holding up mock chauffer signs greeting the apparently infamous passenger. I spot the camera-crew from the plane strut by, the Blonde-and-Turquoise reporter’s head held smugly aloft – clearly she’s got the scoop on everyone else. Whatever it is.

While waiting amongst the suits for my backpack (not hard to spot amongst the garment backs and roll-aways), there’s a commotion behind me and the phalanx of paparazzi crashes through the crowds like a swarm of fire-flies – buzzing about in the strobes of camera flashes and sunguns.

At the center, the fat man from the plane, his hands together before him, a white towel thrown over what can only be handcuffs beneath.

So I’m left to wonder, what infamous ne’er-do-well was seated behind me. Presumably the Turkish Kenneth Lay. Some white-collar criminal coming to Istanbul for a hearing?

----

The next morning at K’s conference breakfast, it seems several people notices a strange story on the local tv news, involving a man with a white towel over his hands being hustled from the airport.

Sadly, none of these people spoke Turkish, so we have no idea who he was.

I don’t ask why they were watching an incomprehensible news program to begin with. I’m just glad to bask in the semi-celebrity this coincidence brings me. “Hey,” they say, “K’s husband was on that flight with the criminal from TV!!!”

Finally, some recognition.


|

Just back from the train station on the far side of town. I’m flying back to Istanbul tonight, and don’t want any more transportion surprises so I've gone to check the time-table. There’s a train leaving at 5:30 that actually stops INSIDE THE AIRPORT, arriving at 6:15 – perfect. Now I can happily spend the day sightseeing.

I’ve given up on Miletus, Priene, and the other “minor” Aegean classical sites. Getting to them involves several dolmush transfers, and I’m worried about the timing. Besides, yesterday Ephesus was all a blur, and I think any more ruins would be wasted on me. Instead, I’ll head out again with my faithful companion Sam, to a few choice, local sites.

----

First, the remnants of the great Temple of Artemis. One of the Seven Wonders of the World, it once rivaled the Pyramids and the Gardens of Babylon for sheer spectacle. It supposedly made the Parthenon in Athens look like a sad imitation. But now only one lonely pillar rises out of swamped foundations; a sad, lone reminder of the glorious past. It was the locals’ ancient devotion to Artemis that kept Paul from delivering his evangelizing speech to the massed Ephesians at the theater I visited yesterday (he wrote a letter instead - it’s been reprinted a few times since). During that infamous display of pagan loyalty, the locals supposedly clasped little idols of Artemis in their hands, and there are a few stray salesmen offering resin reproductions at the site. Sam and I are the only visitors, and we strike-up a little conversation with the man.



He’s been hawking his souvenirs by this sad little pond and the crumbled columns for 25 years, he says. 25 years and still only one column. He’s also selling the fake “ancient” coins that the MoneyPhoto girl was peddling back in Hieropolis. But he’s either a more honest man or else can tell that we’re not the right demographic – he shrugs as he shows them to us, “Not really old. But some people think so.” There’s a story going round, propagated mainly by a few Turkey guidebooks (including the one I’ve been using) that the aging process is accomplished by taking new coins and passing them through the digestive track of a goat. This sounded implausible to me from the moment I first heard it, so I ask the man vaguely, “If they’re not old, how do you make them look like that?”

He smiles back at me. “You think goat? Yes?” I shrug. “This is not smart. You think I sit, watch goat shit for many weeks? Wait for coins. Not smart. No one do this.” So I ask him how he does it. “Secret.” he says. Then he tells me. “I carve coins myself, then chemicals. Many chemicals. Bury in ground. Look old. Take couple days. Better than goat. Yes?”

I’m still not interested in buying one, but I succumb to the tacky Artemis idols and haggle a little. He hurries off along with a few other men selling exactly the same thing as a tour coach pulls up. The German tourists stand and gaze blankly out at the swamp and the pillar for less than five minutes, then pull away again.

Pilgrims to the ancient temple. But it’s hardly the Pyramids.

----

Next, we hike up the hill to the ruins of the 6th century Church of St. John. Despite Paul’s cool reception in Ephesus (so cool, in fact, that he was eventually executed), those pesky disciples were convinced Ephesus would come round, and so John (now also the care-taker of his boss’s mother, Mary) took over the church in Ephesus, wrote his gospels and in the end was buried here as well.

There’s not much left of the church now – just crumbling foundations and a little colonnade around the grave, erected by Justinian, and it clearly lived up to his ambitious vision for all things Christian and architectural.



I descend the three steps down into the (now dry) baptismal font for good measure and pay my respects at the grave. I can’t help but marvel at the ruined site – if this grave were in Italy or Spain, there would no doubt be a massive Cathedral on the site. It’s bewildering to stand on the supposed burial of St. John and look at about at ruins instead of gothic pillars or baroque arches.

Back in town, there’s the Ephesus museum to tour and ice-cream to be eaten. Plus I’ve got to pack. It’s turning out to be a nice, relaxed sort of day.


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Woke up with a start this morning as someone violently rattled my doorknob. I glanced at the clock: 6:30 AM. I'm pretty bad about locking my door at night (especially when it means using the only key, on the inside) but for some reason last night I remembered, and I'm glad I did. I rolled over and mustered a weary, "Hello? Who is it?" and suddenly a thickly accented "Oh! Sorry." in response. Clearly they'd decided that my door must be the bathroom. Early morning. Strange environment. Shared W/C. Understandable.

But looking back, it does make one wonder: who incessantly rattles and shakes a locked bathroom door? Especially when it's a common bathroom?

I tried to get back to sleep, hoping to get in a few more hours before the street noise and the heat became prohibitive.

Then it came again. A knocking. "Hello? How much longer?" I was still sleeping in the bathroom, it appeared. And was taking much too long. "Not a bathroom." I groaned. "Down the hall."

"Oh. Sorry."

I finally got back to sleep just as people started checking-out, repeatedly slamming the creaking, metal front door beside my ground-floor window...

----

After breakfast, Dervish kindly offered to drive me and my new Belgian friend, Sam, to the Ephesus site, about 5km away. The Belgian needed to go to the bank, but Dervish insisted on just lending him the money, and getting it from him later, to save time and convenience.

As Dervish drove us to the site, he stopped to help a blonde woman who stood in the middle of the street, glancing about aimlessly, carrying a guidebook - a Swedish tourist, looking for an “authentic” Turkish restaurant. Rather than suggest his own restaurant, Dervish insisted that she hop in, guide us to the hotel where the rest of her party was staying, and then he drove them all into the smoldering heart of the industrial part of town, where the "most authentic" Turkish food could be had. He even went in and ordered for them. Then hopped back into the van and drove us on to the gates of Ephesus. Pure generosity. (There could always be a comission involved, but at this place… I doubt it.)

---

Dervish drops us off at the upper gate to Ephesus, amidst the frenzied calls of an army of salesmen swarming around a recently arrived tour-bus. “Books! Post-cards!” The call out. “Souvenirs! Maps! Sonnets!” I glance over to Sam: “What’s that man across the street selling?”

“Sounds like ‘sonnets,’” he says in his Belgian accent. “Is this right?”

That’s what I heard. I imagine a few steps down off the road, leading into a corrugated-metal lair where a row of impoverished poets scribble out verses on demand:

Praise the bus that brought thou here,
To marble columns rising so,
That ancient lands be brought e’er near
And tourists shop before they go.

And so on… (no, I’m not going to fake an entire sonnet (and yes, I know it’s only 10 more lines…))

“This is a type of poem, yes?” Sam asks.

I nod in disappointed agreement as I finally spot the purveyor of poetry – once again my imagination has run away with me – in his hand, a plethora of colorful sun-hats.

----

Cell phones in Turkey work everywhere, even in ancient Roman ruins (amazing when you realize I still get no signal in my Brentwood apartment), and K manages to text me a sad little message about being stuck in her hotel room, incapacitated by her swollen foot. I feel a little guilty being away (I always seem to be away when she goes to hospital) but after a few exchanges, it seems she's doing ok, just SAD.

----

I'm moving through the site too slowly for Sam, who isn't really a "ruins" kind of guy anyway, so he wanders ahead, photographing children that stray from tour groups as I wrestle with the four different guidebooks I've brought to reference (in lieu of hiring one of the more than eager human guides).

There's an astonishing cacophony in the ancient streets as four tour groups speaking four different languages collide, each guide striving for linguistic supremacy. Even with such tourist-congestion, I can tell it's a bad season. The gaps between the groups are too big; the empty stores and idle guides too many. Aside from the ten or twelve key photo-op points, the site's vacant. You can easily identify these key points of interest - if you wander a few meters away from the pre-programmed lecture spots beneath the Hercules Gate or the Temple of Domitian, you find yourself suddenly alone. Everyone else is in a group, and they're clearly doing the 1-hour tour.

I wander amongst the shoulder-high walls, through the labyrinthine rooms of the "brothel/house" (once identified as a brothel, but now probably not) and find some magnificent mosaics completely bypassed by the groups. They feel like my own little discovery - something uniquely mine. I'm blocked in my explorations by a sturdy woman, built like an East German swimmer, who stands squarely in the middle of a doorway, staring off blankly. At first I imagine she's just intently attempting to envision the house as it might have been, trying to conjure the sounds and smells of the ancient home and hearth. But the more I try to subtly move past her, the more she refuses to make eye contact. Finally I push past and discover her daughter in a corner of the next room, just finishing an impromptu bathroom break.

Such respect for the past.

Ironically, the passage she's blocking leads to a pristinely preserved block of latrines - replete with a musician's platform. If only she’d held on just a little longer…



I rejoin the main street, the ancient paving blocks still underfoot and the tour groups moving along as briskly and brusquely as ever. The site is impressive, but somehow pales in comparison to the impossible "you-are-there" experience of Pompeii and Herculaneum. This is of course a different sort of city, and can be appreciated as an example of an Imperial center of trade. There are unique historical elements to enjoy, but the “wow” factor seems to be less than I’d expected. And the groups and the noise and the signs (and as K's conference would say, "the scripting of the experience") seems somehow less authentic than the sprawling ruins of Hieropolis and Aphrodisias. This, the site I was saving as "best for last," seems to have been usurped by its lesser rivals.

Not to say that it isn't amazing. The (heavily restored) Library of Celsus is astonishingly evocative. And in all fairness, the Terrace Houses are closed, so the decision of whether or not to pay the exorbitant extra admission fee is spared me, but so are some of the most renowned and best preserved parts of the site.



The thing that strikes me most, though, is how, remarkable as a classical site like Ephesus is, for scale and preservation it just doesn't compare to Egypt - from the mighty monumental architecture to the little elements of daily life. And much of the Egyptian stuff is a millennium or two older. I could be biased, but I don’t think that's it.

I wander down towards "Harbor Street" - the main promenade of the town, and a wonder in ancient times - it's said that it was kept lit even at night with blazing oil street-lamps, all the way from the amphitheater to the harbor. Even in those times, the Menderes river was constantly filling the harbor with silt (it was dredged every occasion an emperor or dignitary paid a visit) and once the imperial majesties ceased their visiting (and the dredging stopped), the shoreline started moving away as the delta filled in. So now the ancient harbor is actually land-locked, stranded 5km inland. You can just see the distant waters of the Aegean on the horizon, from the top rim of the amphitheater.

I meet up with Sam at intervals, explaining a few key monuments to him. He seems happy to wait for me, even though I've told him it could be a while.

Eventually we head back to town, walking along the roadside and then cutting across the rural fields, still plowed with donkeys when tractors can’t be had. There’s a bizarre streak of anachronism running through the rural towns I visit – internet cafes, paragliding and ultralights for the tourists, and back-breaking farm work for the locals. A cart loaded with produce or wood drives through a busy town intersection, the horse stopping at a red light along side motor-scooters and dump trucks.

----

Back at the pension, I spend a little time trying to write in the upstairs restaurant. It’s nice and light now, so I can take in the details. Here they go for the young Atatürk, in his army uniform, complete with beret.



It’s not long before Laura and Dervish’s sister, Oya, lure me into a conversation. Oya’s an older, smiling Turkish woman who repeatedly insists she cannot “talk English so good” and then jabbers on without a breath for half an hour. But any story she tells, be it about her “brothers” and “sisters” all over the world, or about her dreams of going to Australia and Alaska, there are always two constant refrains: “I no talk English so good” and a variation on: “Sorry, sweet Jesus.” “Oh my sweet Jesus.” “Oh, Jesus, I am sorry.” Strangely, this doesn’t come across as fanatically overbearing religiosity, but rather just part of her bizarre whirlwind personality.

It is a little funny, though, when she finally asks me, “Brother, what religion are you? Christian I think?” She then smiles and reaches back behind a bench and takes out a little book with a hand-made cover. “This is my bible. I am Christian too, but don’t tell anyone. Muslim country.”

I smile, flip through her bible appreciatively, and then as gently as possible, I point out that her allusion to Jesus every other sentence might be a bit of a give-away.

“Oh, sweet Jesus. I am sorry. I talk too much. Oh my Jesus.”

Most of the other guests, I later learn, are convinced that Oya is crazy. But I think she’s just enthusiastic, and strangely has been locked into a peasant mindset that her brothers, Dervish and Aslan, seem to have escaped. Aslan lives in Berkeley, and Dervish couldn’t be more of a modern entrepreneur. But Oya cooks, and cleans, and swears that she can never visit the places that she talks constantly about. “Oh, I’m too poor. Just a poor Turkish woman. I could never go anywhere. Too much work. Not me. Oh Jesus. Not me. But it is my dream, Jesus, to go to Australia. But I am too poor.”

Laura tells me Oya could go, if she wanted. She just can’t conceive of the reality – she can’t imagine leaving. Not working. Dervish’s mother, who’s well over 70, is the same. She still cooks at the Pension, keeps a market garden, hauls massive tanks of natural gas and loads of produce up to the fourth floor kitchen every morning. She can’t imagine stopping. Can’t imagine going anywhere. The same with Oya.

I wonder how Dervish and Aslan can be so different. But there is one obvious answer – they are both men.

----

Aslan has just arrived for a visit home (taking a few weeks off from his job as a salesman of Indonesian furniture in Berkley) and before I can finish eating my dinner, he insists that Sam and I, along with two other Belgian girls, come with him to a “Greek” town to taste the local wine. It’s late, and I’m tired, but how can one say no?

We hop into Dervish’s van and bounce along the country roads to the next village. Naturally the village isn’t really in Greece, but it has stubbornly clung to its Greek heritage following its assimilation by Turkey, and it likewise has kept up its age-old wine-making traditions.

Even in ancient times, this area of Turkey was famous for its wines. It’s hard to imagine Italians going out of their way to import wine from Turkey, but the Romans supposedly revered wine from Ephesus as a treat to be savored.

As we turn onto ever narrower, ever bumpier roads, I begin to guess at the adventure before me: a tiny corrugated hut behind a distillery. Reused dusty bottles of syrupy wine poured into murky glasses for sipping. Tinny music emanating from a 30 year old transistor radio and a wrinkled, leathery old man eying these young foreigners with suspicion.

We pull into a little town, not unlike Selçuk, and hike the last few blocks to the winery. And my imagination could not have been further from reality. What we find is a refined, immaculate show-room – rustic in its architecture but modern in its conveniences. Wine racks line the walls, exposed beams, finished to a polish, loom overhead. Music’s pumped in through a state of the art stereo and young men in crisp white shirts expertly pour the wine. It’s a tasting room that would shame half the trendy wineries in Napa Valley.

I of course don’t drink, and this confuses the waiters to no end. Eventually one of them runs down the street to buy a coke which he can re-sell to me. (Aslan observes that this was one of the most confusing behaviors to him when he arrived in America – he went into a store asking for something, and was told, “I’m sorry. We don’t carry that.” He points out that in Turkey, you’re never told “we don’t carry that” but rather, you’re detained while someone runs out the back, down the street, and finds whatever it is you want so that they be the ones to sell it to you. This hasn’t really been my experience in Istanbul, but certainly in the country…) It’s funny to think about what a hard time I’m having NOT drinking alcohol in this “Islamic” country. Though clearly here, in Selçuk, the Greek/Christian population is still well represented, along with all the drinking that such a population entails.

In the end, it’s a refined, muted evening of sitting back and telling stories as the Belgians sip the wine and politely remark that it’s more like sherry or brandy than anything they’d ever call wine: too sweet, too light. But Aslan will hear none of it, and I can happily abstain from judgment.


|

Received a sad text message from K on my mobile just before bed:
 
FELL AT POOL.  SO STPD.  NO BREAK BT CRUTCHS 4 2 WKS.  HAD HSPTITAL ADVENTR BT OK NOW.
 
There’s something I haven’t mentioned, because until now it wasn’t relevant, but now I guess it is: the participants in K’s conference have been dropping like flies.  Literally. One attendee cancelled just before arriving in Istanbul due to injury, and another man fell in Aya Sofya on the second day and fractured his pelvis.  He’s been in the American Hospital in traction ever since. A couple other minor spills are always met with horror and concern.
 
It’s been jokingly referred to as “The Curse” but now it seems K has become its latest victim.
 
A couple more text messages and I get the vague details – she slipped after swimming at the university pool on a wet stone step and pulled a tendon or ligament (not sure) on the top of her foot, and bruised the bone badly. Her colleagues insisted that she go to the hospital, where x-rays showed no break, but the doctors ordered bed-rest for three days, compression bandages, constant ice and elevation, and said she should keep weight off it (i.e. use crutches) for at least two weeks.
 
Why is it K’s always in the hospital when I’m impossibly far away?  At least I’m in the same country.  And I’ll see her in a few days.
 
Puts a damper on things, though, to be sure… 


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Turns out the "direct" bus from Pamukkale really leaves from Denizli, 15km away, so I sit in the bus office and wait for a dolmush to pick me up. Again the hospitality is overwhelming.  The office workers are having tea, and I'm invited to eat with them while I wait.  But before I start to fret over whether or not to ask if meat or nuts are involved, a dirty white van careens up to the door, the horn beeps, and my bags are flung inside.
 
The van is full of tourists, and for the first time I'm really confronted with an organized tour group. Mostly French and German, but a Canadian family as well - a very loud gray-haired mother in loose flowing gypsy-chic hippy clothes along her two equally loud teenage sons; they’re clothes are nearly as loud as their behavior: enormous trousers hanging at their hips and boxer shorts pulled up to their navels. A little taste of home, a'la Canada.
 
The driver makes a typical joke, "you all go to airport, yes?  OK. Airport." when he knows very well we're headed for the bus station.  I play along, demanding the airport, and he keeps up the joke, now telling me I've missed my plane and will have to take the bus.
 
In the back, the Canadian gangsta-boys shout and complain about the van and the heat and the dust, while the mother extols the virtues of traveling. And I privately extol the virtues of traveling alone.
 
----
 
The dolmush arrives at the bustling otogar, and the driver asks for my ticket.  As I show it to him, he snatches it away and motions for me to follow the group.  With two-dozen coaches and another dozen mini-buses all humming around us, I decide I can use the help.  I've overheard the group mention that they're on an organized trip, and that they're catching the 6:00  bus to Selçuk (as am I) so I figure it'll be ok.
 
The driver finally returns and doles out the tickets he's bought for the group.  And then he hands me a ticket, but it's not the one I bought two days before.  It's for a different bus line (Isparta - not Pamukkale) and clearly cost 8 million lira, not the 10 million I paid. I find this a little odd, but decide not to make an issue of it. Maybe time-tables have changed.  Maybe the bus-lines have combined two buses into one. This sort of thing happens a lot in Turkey. I’m sure it’s all for the best.
 
The bus arrives, and the route-card in the front window bears a litany of cities: Izmir, Selçuk, Aydin, Nazilli... But Selçuk is there, and I know Izmir is further on, so it seems ok.
 
I ask the dolmush driver as he tosses my bag onto the bus, "Direct?  Selçuk direct?" 
 
"Yes." he says. "No stops. Direct to Selçuk."
 
I climb onto the bus and look for a nice window seat, but notice most of the chairs already have bags in them, their occupants having hopped off to buy drinks and pida at the station.  Then I overhear a French conversation I can just make out, and realize there are assigned seats. Turkish buses operate like European trains - a conductor to check the tickets and assign seats (supposedly never a single woman beside a single man).  And having checked my old ticket 100 times to be sure of the departure time, I realize my seat has changed too. Now it’s seat 45. I can't believe there are really 45 seats on the bus.
 
But there are.
 
If you count to the very back. To the last row.
 
I'm starting to worry.
 
The  engine revs up and the long-haul passengers quickly file back onto the bus.  The heat is stifling, but with the engine comes the A/C.  I 'm quite aware of this, because the cooling unit is directly above my head.  Which is why we have no overhead bin space.  But maybe it will make up for the fact that it's hot to begin with, and probably even hotter back here, above the engine.
 
Except that where we would have overhead A/C vents, we have a cooling unit instead.  Hmmm.
 
The bus fills to capacity.  Locals patiently try to explain  to the teenage Canadian Gangstas that there are assigned seats, and they can't all sit by the window.  There’s a little bit of "I was here first" resistance, but it's all sorted out in the end.
 
The Canadian mother is hacking at her armrest, trying to swivel it down.  I step forward and quickly demonstrate the admittedly convoluted maneuver, murmuring, "pull back, then down."
 
She then teaches this to one of her sons, observing, "They're so friendly here.  And his English was so good." If only she could see the website I'd just finished, she'd be forced to reconsider. But I like being misidentified. She has no idea I can understand every word. I wonder where she thinks I'm from...
 
It's now clear that I've been swindled by the dolmush driver.  My first victimization in Turkey (not counting the web-building enterprise). He cashed my 10 million lira ticket in for one on a less expensive bus and kept the difference.  And in so doing consigned me to the hellish back row (which in addition to being extra hot and having no windows, also has no legroom and seats that don't recline). I watch through the window as "my" bus- the luxurious Pamukkale 6:00 express, pulls away on time (we're already running late) half empty.  And it's not as if I'm having a more authentic "Turkish" experience on the cheap bus - it's mostly backpackers and Canadian Gangstas.
 
I guess the driver didn’t like my jokes.  I would have gladly tipped him 2 million lira. I'd have paid him five to bring me to the right bus. But I've learned a lesson. 3½  hours stewing over my moderate discomfort, all for $1.50. And I knew, the minute I let him take my ticket, that I was in trouble.  In any other country, I'd be immediately suspicious, but the Turks have been so kind, so generous.  Every opportunity they've had to take advantage, they haven't.  Never demanding a tip. Never leading me astray.  But now my guard is back up.
 
----
 
I must confess, there is one fabulous innovation that even this lower-end bus has - there's a button overhead to turn off the speaker.  To silence the driver's pulsing music. This I give thanks for many times.  (Once on a 10 hour bus trip in Egypt, I  unscrewed the overhead speaker and disconnected the wires, just to squelch the distorted racket pounding down from overhead.)
 
----
 
1 hour into the trip.  We're pulling into a small town - stopping at the otogar.  So much for the "direct" bus - I should have asked the conductor or the bus driver, not the swindling two-faced dolmush driver. Alas.
 
I try to tell myself: this way I'm seeing more of Turkey.  I'm seeing the little towns.  I'm not just speeding along on the motorway. (And I simultaneously dismiss any school of philosophy that endorses instant karma - my four hours of toil that afternoon are clearly not being rewarded quickly.)
 
As we pull away, I realize: it's all about expectations. It's standing room only now - men pressed together in the aisles, hanging onto the overhead racks and swaying as we trundle along the bumpy roads.  But compared to Egypt, even this “low-end” bus is first class. In fact, the day before, I was perfectly happy to spend 3 hours round-trip to Aphrodisias in a run-down little van, with no A/C and springs pushing up out of the seats. It's only because I'd been hearing about these luxury Turkish bus lines - only because I was cheated that I feel unhappy.
 
But this must be how "real" backpackers do it: no expectations.  Laid back.  They're happy to get  the bus.  And if the bus doesn't come, they take the next one.  And they certainly wouldn't have an e-mail reservation made 6-weeks before, explaining that they’ll be arriving in Selçuk at 9:05 and to please have a vegetarian meal with no nuts ready at 9:30. 
 
The Canadian Gangstas are working magic, literally; slight-of-hand with coins and cards. The Turkish kids in the row ahead are eating it up.  The Turkish mother turns back, insisting that the Gangstas have bread and fruit that the Turkish family has brought for the trip.  Again - the hospitality is almost inconceivable.  These obnoxious kids have quickly been adopted, and already the nefarious doings of the evil dolmush driver are fading into memory.
 
----
 
It's night by the time I reach Selçuk. Despite the detours, I’m not all that late. It's a "small" town, but compared to Pamukkale it's a metropolis.  Where Pamukkale felt like the desert, Selçuk feels like a city.   I work hard to dodge the salesmen at the otogar, touting their hostels and pensions, but I mange to saddle up my massive backpack and hike off into the dark, only my Lonely Planet town map to guide me. 
 
Amazingly, the streets (for the most part) have signs, and so I feel fairly confident when I turn down a pitch-black alley and head up the hill.  Finally I arrive at a little hole-in-the-wall pension, knock on the door and I’m admitted by two French girls who are in the midst of frantically packing for a night bus to Cappadocia.  I drop my pack in the stairwell and they tell me to follow the voices up the dark, winding stairs to the rooftop restaurant.
 
Backpackers line the walls of the intimate dining room, sitting on the floor, eating at low circular tables. Crimson red carpets and hanging lanterns round out the decor.  The owner, Dervish, greets me with non-stop chatter:  "Ah, you are here!  I know, you are very hungry.  Eat now.  No room.  No toilette.  Eat.  Food is ready.  Room, not quite ready.  But food is here, like you.  9:15 bus from Selçuk.  I know. Your wife is very good with the e-mail." He picks up a knife and fork as he passes a table of Dutch university girls, "Oh!" he grabs at his heart, "I can't find the fork because your eyes are so beautiful.  I am in love with all the Netherlanders" He twirls round and hands me my utensils, whispering to me, "So many women in the world, I love them all.  But don't tell anyone." And then he's off to the next table, plying his affections.
 
Along with my dinner, I have my “welcome drink” of red wine, which of course I won’t drink (though clearly everyone else would… in this “Muslim” country).  And there’s a plate of chicken mistakenly put down, which I feel bad for skipping over.  I play the “lone traveler” for a while and scribble aimlessly in my notebook, surreptitiously watching the other tables.  Three people I make out to be “employees” sit at a corner table along with the French girls from downstairs, apparently for a farewell dinner.  I take the wine over and suggest they have it, because I’d hate for it to go to waste.  They nod and smile and carry on with their conversation.
 
Next the chicken. Dervish returns from the kitchen, spots the “special vegetable” mistakenly put on my plate, and takes this over to the French table as well.  It seems my entire dinner is traveling across the room.  But I feel I’m interrupting their farewells, so I return to my solitary scribbling.
 
Until one of the French girls delivers a salt shaker.  “We thought you might want our salt. We don’t like it.”  This begins an absurd exchange of objects between the tables, and it seems I’ve finally made friends with someone that speaks at least a little English…
 
Except that they’re chugging down their wine and devouring their dinner, because they’ve got to be on the 11:30 night bus.  So bon voyage, goodbye, and farewell….
 
----
 
But  before I can mope too much, my ever-appealing mini-computer draws more attention. I’m trying desperately to catch-up with my blog after dinner when I’m approached by Laura, Dervish’s French girlfriend (and the only woman in the building who isn’t lavished with extreme flattery and affection). Another lone traveler, a young Belgian guy named Sam, joins us as well.  They of course ask if I’m a writer, start telling me their life stories, and before I know it it’s 2:00AM. 
 
And I’ve got Ephesus to do in the morning. 


|

I  know what's in store today, and I'm already exhausted.  I've done everything I planned for Pamukkale - I'm ahead of schedule. So I sleep until it's too hot to bear and then take my breakfast.
 
"Today, web page?" Haçer asks as she serves me an extra-large slice of watermelon.
 
"Yes,” I say.  “First pictures, then website." Last night I jotted down some rough promotional text on my PDA, based on the bizarre conversation I had with Omer on my first night, and I'm hoping I'll be able to copy it, along with photos from my camera, onto their computer - to save me typing everything again on the cruelly convoluted Turkish keyboard.
 
I hop around the pension, snapping digital pictures of the sign, the courtyard, the pool. I ask Haçer if she has any clean rooms to photograph, and she nods enthusiastically, leading me to each style of room. I take their pictures, along with photos of the bathrooms,  the roof, the water heater... I only want to do this once, so I shoot everything I can think of.
 
They've had their computer for a while, but clearly it's still a little alien to them.  They peck in their password and squint as they read their e-mail.
 
I realize, they're not entirely clear about the difference between an e-mail account and a website.  I think they had another guest set up their Yahoo E-Mail account (which takes all of five minutes on even the slowest of connections) and they must think a website is about the same. Which is a lot like confusing the difference between signing up for  a library card and writing a novel.
 
It's one thing to work in a stranger's living room, building "their" website as they all peer in over your shoulder, but I also have some truly grueling technical challenges to deal with: A painfully slow 36.6k modem. No photo editing software. No HTML editor. An   operating system almost as old as the Roman ruins in the hills above. Not to mention the fact that they naturally have a version of Windows that's entirely in Turkish.  So I have to navigate all the menus by memory (the memory of a version of Windows I haven’t used for 4 years). Shortcut-keys have been changed according to  Turkish spelling, and are thus useless.
 
I use my Axim PDA to transfer the Nikon's digital pictures from Compact Flash memory to SD card. Wonder-of-wonders, there's a USB slot on the computer, hidden between the keyboard port and the external modem serial connector.  I unplug the keyboard and the modem, plug in a flash memory reader I brought for posting blog entries (but have yet to use), download the drivers (very slow) then manage to copy the pictures and my text file onto the computer.
 
I then begin searching the web for photo software to resize and rotate the photos, working with the Yahoo-Geocities on-line editor to build a site, all the while trying to come up with text to fill out the page... It's nearly 100 degrees in the room, and no A/C.  This proves too hot for most of the family, but still I have spectators, marveling at my skills, and how fast I type (on a Turkish keyboard, at that).  They take it in shifts, unable to handle the stifling heat for more than 20 minutes or so.  Then they go outside and cool off.  Some nieces and nephews stop by to meet me and watch. A friend visiting from Anakara joins as well.  They sit by the door and murmur about the "XXXAmerikan, çok güzel”
 
They kindly bring me some water, and bread and cheese.  Say I am welcome in their home. Eat. No problem. Done yet?
 
As I watch the download progress-bars creep across the screen, I try to think of what rustic little hotel websites usually say.  I occasionally check the clock – hours creep by.  I’m not sure why, but for my 6:00PM bus, the agent suggested I be at the bus office by 4:45. 
 
Finally I'm near completion.  I've been given a little peace to work on my own.  Maybe they can't take the heat. Or are already bored of the process; it loses its novelty quickly. I go out in search of them, and find everyone on the rooftop terrace, eating lunch family-style from giant metal platters. "Finished?  Yes?"
 
I bid them come down to see.  They look it over.  Inspecting my work.  They helpfully make a correction to the address, provide their fax number, etc.  Then they ask the inevitable: "No picture of rooms?  No picture of toilette?"
 
How do I explain to them that I'm still trying to download a photo editor to rotate the photos?  That I then have to resize and upload them?  That I've got a layout on the page now that sort-of works?  And that I really need to pack and maybe eat.
 
But in their faces I can see expectation, or is it disappointment?  So I press on. I didn’t really think the photos were good enough to begin with, especially of the rooms, but when I pull up the rough version of their homepage, and there's a flashy photo of their pension - pool, restaurant and all, they ogle the screen as if seeing the future for the first time. They can't believe it's happened - what I promised (foolishly) has come to pass.  And now they want everything. All my offhand suggestions.  I pull up the bedroom photos.  "Oh - very nice I think.  Very nice.  Çok güzel."  And they point to a little space on the page where they think more photos would fit nicely.
 
In the end they get the photos. I'm astonished that they keep asking for more, after I've already spent three hours working, but strangely it doesn't seem demanding.  I think there's just the expectation of helpfulness. The return of the generosity I’ve been basking in everywhere I go. They keep saying things like, "You are like Turkish.  Very friendly to help." And I smile as I download another shareware application. 
 
Now they can sense the end is coming, and they all gather round, hanging on to every click of the mouse, clapping when the final dim, slightly askew photo of "the big room" appears on the web-page.
 
I'm frustrated.  Time has run out, but the text is functional at best, the layout has changed considerably under their supervision, pictures and text no longer line up.  The colors in the photos aren't great.  One is lower resolution than the others.
 
But they don't mind.  I console myself by thinking that I've contrived to create a sort of artificially rustic quaintness.  The website isn't unlike the e-mail reservations - charming in its simplistic enthusiasm. I'm now working at that level - I've made the website of an 11-year-old computer neophyte working in a foreign language.  It's not really how I'd like to be remembered. But they seem happy.  And it’s not the worst web-page I’ve ever seen. At least it doesn’t play the Turkish National Anthem when it loads up…
 
In the words of K's conference: it evokes a techno-folk aesthetic in the style of the rural youth dialectic.
 
But they're delighted.  Now they have a web page to show to Pat Yale.  They're still not entirely sure how it differs from e-mail (a distinction I explain again and again and again) but they knew that they needed one, and now they have one.
 
Haçer, the mother, starts to get very sad and tells me repeatedly that she will cry when I leave.  I hope that maybe this is just a Turkish expression and dash up to my room to pack.  I've made myself far too much at home, and must throw things into my bag to make my 4:45 appointment at the bus office.
 
Thankfully I'm spared the tears, but again I get the "you are like brother. We will never forget you." treatment. It’s nice to be appreciated. But I still have to pay my bill, and then I'm off to hike up the hill to my bus. 


|

Turkey blog 7-13

So hot last night. Mosquitoes and humidity - almost like camping in Texas. I got an early start thanks to the barking dogs that began their canine chorus as the sun (and the temperature) began to rise.

Today, a dolmush tour to the Roman ruins at Aphrodisias 100km away. It's supposedly a fantastic site, but little visited, so I'm excited to see it.

----

After Haçer serves up a simple “Turkish” breakfast of fruit, bread and cheese, a little run-down panel van pulls up to the courtyard and toots its horn.

Philippe, the lone Frenchman from dinner and my silent confrère for the day, joins me in the van. Another couple already lazes in the back seat. The rotund, mustachioed driver flashes a broad grin over his shoulder and we speed off, up into the village streets. We zoom around the town in the battered old van, picking up couples at pensions as we go:
three couples, three singles. I'm the only English speaker. Some German, some French maybe Russians in the back... The van is full, but comfortable. No A/C, but the windows are open and we drive so fast the wind is deafening.

About 30 minutes into the ride suddenly the driver reaches back and slips on his seatbelt. What does this mean? I look down to the cushion of my rocking, death-seat of a bench. I spot several springs poking out of the wool blankets that serve as seat covers, but certainly no seatbelts. Are we near a treacherous stretch of curvy road? Planning to accelerate to Nimrod-like velocity?

No. There's another much less perilous explanation: A police car passes in the opposite direction, and once it dwindles in the rear-view mirror, the driver tugs at his belt and casts it off with disgust. It was just the fuzz…

----

Along the way, we make a quick stop at one of the ubiquitous water-spouts that line the Turkish roads: little stone markers about a two feet high, with a constantly running faucet spewing water into a small basin below. The driver washes his face, re-fills his water bottle, and climbs back in. "Good water." he says. "Cold.” It seems all too obvious that none of use would dare take a sip, but he enjoys it so much it’s almost tempting.

----



After an hour or so in the van, I finally get to wander around the ancient city of Aphrodisias. As advertised, it’s nearly deserted; there's just one group of Japanese tourists, brightly colored parasols bobbing above their heads - and they don't seem the slightest bit ridiculous. Well, maybe a little, but only in juxtaposition to the crumbled ruins. When they emerge through the gate to the massive, well preserved stadium, it makes quite the picture.

But there's no denying the heat. It's literally 100 degrees in the shade - I just measured it. My trusty emergency-whistle/compass/thermometer (a three-bird/one-stone kind of device) reads 107 degrees in the sun.

Hoping to avoid the only other tourists, I end up taking a wrong turn and end up smack-in-the-middle of the ongoing excavation. It’s the comfortably familiar tableau of traditionally dressed men hauling buckets of dirt, obediently following the instructions of foreign looking grad-students in GAP t-shirts. (Aphrodisias has been excavated since 1961 by Kenan T Erim, an NYU professor who was so devoted to the site that when he died in 1990, he was buried here along with the ancient people he spent his life digging up.) None of the excavators seems to notice me, but a tour-guide leading another small group atop a ridge starts to yell in my direction. No-one seems to know what language I speak (“German?” “French?” "Turkish?" Never English. Never American.), so I just take advantage of my seemingly indistinct heritage and pretend to understand nothing. Eventually he gives up and stops screaming. Finally left to my own devices, I make my way along a little path back to the approved tourist trail.

----

As with most ancient ruins, the best statuary is housed in a little on-site museum. In the Aphrodisias museum I encounter the predictable line-up of somber looking busts, and a few magnificent ones. One fantastic group is labeled simply “Intellectuals” because of "their long hair". Soldiers, the label tells me, have short hair. I wonder if this is the case at K's conference. I try to recall if the more militant “intellectuals” have closer-cropped styles. And it might work out that way. At least for the men… I'll have to do a proper survey when I get back to Istanbul.

My favorite pieces in the museum are a collection of 5th century shield-portraits: wise looking heads mounted on the wall like hunting trophies: Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Pinderos - philosophers and their famous students. Poor Alexander the Great's visage has had its throat savagely cut with a chisel. It's a gruesome sight that a quick repair-job has failed to conceal.

----

The museum seems to be the coolest place to stop and jot down some thoughts in my notebook. At the only available table there's another guy doing the same. It seems ALL lone travelers have journals. Any uncomfortable, lonely moment can be averted by a decisive extraction of the notebook and pen, followed by purposeful scribbling. But their journals are all much nicer than mine: evocative leather-bound volumes instead of the child's spiral-bound notebook I bought in a local market for 25 cents.

----

Riding back from the site, I realize I’ve hardly seen or read the news since I arrived in Turkey. There could have been 3 bombs at the airport and I wouldn't know unless I'd caught a blurb during the 30 minutes that I watched CNN in the hotel in Istanbul. Again, I'm struck by how exaggerated things can seem from afar - how quickly misperceptions can be engendered - how the notion of Turkey as a dangerous foreign place seemed almost sensible before I left, but ridiculous now. I couldn't feel more safe or more welcome here (except for the lack of seatbelts, but that's hardly a problem indigenous to Turkey). Regardless of the overly cautious faux-Canadian Americans in K's group, I haven't had one bad experience after telling people I'm American. No obvious ill will.

But one also realizes that the converse must be true - that just as the filtered news out of Turkey makes for a strangely skewed conception of it as a country, in the same way the notion of America to the rest of the world is exaggerated and flavored by the “news” that they have available. And everyone is looking to America, but always through the lens of a satellite broadcast.

----

We're almost back to Pamukkale in the dolmush when the driver pulls over into a service station. “Petrol.” he explains. Naturally. Why fill up during the 4 hours we spent wandering around Aphrodisias? He hops out and has a quick conversation with the station attendant who's pumping the gas. The attendant motions to the far side of the car-park, where two young men are blasting a rusted old Renault with garden hoses. Our driver nods and slides open the passenger door with a necessarily violent tug. “I must to wash bus. Please to have chai. No charge.”

Yes, we've encountered the apparently universal notion of a “free car-wash with fill-up.”

As the van rolls over towards the garden hoses, we're escorted to a corner of the car-park, just past the gas pumps, where a little miniature fence cordons off an area with two umbrellas and eight chairs - the BP Service Station Tea Garden. The driver smiles and waddles over, delivering glasses of warm apple tea and a roll of biscuits for our trouble. We sip the hot tea in the 100 degree heat, the sweet scent of apples and refined petroleum wafting in the air.



The French guys have finally figured out that they're both French. They've formed a new couple, so I'm now officially alone. My confrère has gone back to his people. Now it's just me and the driver. Everyone else is pared off. I listen in on the French, catching heavily accented computer terms like “see ploos ploos” and “leenix booox” - again recognizing techno-babble as the Lingua Franca of the coming age.

----

We return to the pension at 4:00 - plenty of time to hike back up the hill to Hieropolis, take in the museum and then hike around until sunset. But first Haçer, arms full of laundry, clearly exhausted from a day of cleaning, wants to have a word:

“Hello! You have good trip? Aphrodisias çok güzel. Very beautiful. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“You talk to Frenchman? What does he do?”

No - the Frenchman stuck to his own. “Sorry, I didn't talk to him.”

“Oh...” she seems disappointed. “You know what is his business? Travel writer?”

Again with the travel-writer obsession. He's a lone traveler, so naturally he has a notebook…

“You find out? Ask? I think maybe travel writer.”

Philippe couldn't look more like a dirt-poor backpacker at the end of a sixth-month global trek if he had every costume-designer in Hollywood to help him. Scruffy beard. Threadbare clothes. Patched canvass knapsack. But what do travel writers really look like, anyway?

“I don't think he's a writer.” I say. But it does make me think: I should always travel alone, scribble obsessively in little notebooks, and then bask in the resulting royal service afforded only restaurant critics, the ostentatiously rich, and travel writers…

“You will stay here for a while?” she starts up again. “I was thinking, maybe you read e-mail for me? Mail come today. I no understand”

“Sure.” I say. It was easy enough yesterday. I really did want to hike back up to Hieropolis and see the museum, but this shouldn't take too long…

I follow Haçer down to the “house” - really just several hotel-rooms joined together as a residence - and sit at the computer. The e-mail is spam, so it's easily dismissed. It did contain the number “35” prominently for some reason, and she’s disappointed to discover that it isn’t a reservation request for 35 people.

“No reservation?”

“No. Sorry. A mistake. Bad e-mail.”

“I understand.” she says after a brief pause. “Also, I was thinking. Not now, but tomorrow… Since you have ticket for six o'clock bus, I was thinking, maybe, you make us website?” She studies my reaction. “This is easy, yes?”

What is it with me? Do I just ooze computer knowledge? Does silicon seep out through my pores? Or does she just ask this of everyone? I'd even tried a preemptive strike yesterday, when she asked about my job. Computer - no. I'm a writer. Writer - i.e. artist - i.e. aloof and non-technical. Guess that's a stereotype I can't rely on anymore.

“Well,” I explain, “it's not easy. And not hard. Sort of in-between. But it can take a lot of time.”

“But you have much time tomorrow, yes? It is not easy?”

Meanwhile, precious museum time is ticking away. Has she still no concept of my demanding itinerary: Tues, 7-13-04, 4:00-7:00 - Hieropolis Museum and Necropolis.

“Do you know what you'd like the website to say?” I ask, hoping to imply the amount of thought that must first go into such an endeavor.

“Yes. Just say good things. So we have website and can give to Pat Yale from Lonely Planet.” Ah. Now I understand the urgency. And I do have a really hard time telling anyone “no.”

“Well, maybe, tomorrow, we can see.” I offer. “I could take photos maybe. We'll see. But I need to go to the museum…”

“Okay. Tamam. Tomorrow.”

----

The one really fascinating thing about the Hieropolis museum is that the museum itself is as old as the things is contains: the three exhibition halls are actually housed beneath the shored-up arches of the ancient roman baths. Trendy halogen track-lighting hangs from age-old brickwork. The ceilings, ash-black from 1,000 years of campfires and torches, loom over humidity controlled display cases.

This would have K's conference whipped into a jargon-laden frenzy - Dual Temporalities to be sure.



----

The museum was wonderful but small, so I've got plenty of time to explore before heading back for dinner. Needing to catch up on my blog, and knowing web-work awaits me at the hotel, I decide to bite the financial bullet and have a drink by the Termal Pool, typing away beside the submerged ruins and the corpulent buoys in the form of Eastern European tourists. I'm sure the Romans price-gouged just as much as the locals do now. But it's a pleasant, shady place to work, and the ruin-littered hills above the trees are starting to glow amber in the late afternoon light.



----

I'm always at Hieropolis at sunset. Of course, this only amounts to two times, but it feels like it must always be this way. The ruins aren't the same "quality" as Pompeii or (presumably) Ephesus, but the quantity can't be beat. Vast fields of ancient stone poking up from the brown grass and tangled thorns. Every little hill yields another mini-valley of temples and mausoleums. Unlike most ancient cities, where you're told the obligatory "And if you can believe it...this is only ten percent of the old city! Ninety percent is still buried under the modern town!" at Hieropolis, you really can get a sense of the vastness of the ancient boundaries, and hike from one district to the next. You can wander the tops of the city walls (now just brick pathways at ground-level) and walk along nearly 3km of crumbling tombs. The convoy of tour-buses rumbles out along the road, and I'm left nearly alone, with just the odd bikini-clad tourist wandering amongst the circular tumulous tombs and crumbling vaulted churches. Literally thousands of jumbled sarcophagi, toppled and jumbled as if a tornado had lifted the entire necropolis and then strewn it back down across the hill.



----

I just can't take another barefoot hike down the Travertines, so I follow along the top, hoping to find a road back into town. I come across a little channel running along the edge of the white cliffs - the mysterious source of water for the pools. They've shut off the supply, and the last of the liquid trickles down through man-made openings to the pools below. Just beyond the channel, the ruined foundations of all the raised motels. Their cracked tile courtyards and dry, over-grown swimming pools appear perfectly in concert with their Roman predecessors.

As I hike, I encounter local villagers making their way to the backside of the cliffs, where less visited pools still retain a little of their mineral-laden water. Each family carries plastic bags with sandwiches and Pepsi for their picnics. They mill about and change into bathing suits as they crouch in the shelter of open Roman sarcophagi.

My narrow path eventually becomes the old city wall, and I navigate the top carefully as the ground drops away on either side. Suddenly I'm crossing a valley via the narrow, ancient stones. But they've lasted this long, so I trust I won't be the one to bring them down.

More ruins to be seen below. More ancient city in every direction.

And finally the dirt road and my way back into town…






|

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?"




|

I’m on my way back to the Istanbul airport for my first venture into Anatolia.  It’s also my first taste of the renowned Turkish bus system, although this time it’s only a 30 minute ride from Taksim square out to the airport.  The city still feels a little like Cairo, but there’s a European approach to nearly everything, and it’s more than a token influence: schedules are posted and seem to be followed.  My bus leaves exactly on time, and the next bus has already arrived, ready to take its place.  I hope this bodes well for the ambitiously precise itinerary I have scheduled for the next 5 days: a tour of western Anatolia that will take me to the Travertine pools and Roman ruins of Hieropolis, the ancient cities of Aphrodisias, Ephesus, Priene, Miletus… and those are just the highlights.
 
The shuttle-bus roams through inner slums and run down streets of Istanbul, away from the modern bustle of Taksim and the touristy refinement of the Sultanehmet, but still it seems like a crumbling European City, not a Middle-Eastern one: three or four story buildings with little balconies looming over the alleys, half-abandoned and half propped up by less elegant means…like Paris after it's burned...but still like Paris.  I hope I eventually make it to the Asian side of the city.
 
---
 
At the thoroughly modern Istanbul Ataturk International Airport, the bus driver helps me with my bag and then adamantly refuses to take a tip.  I’m amazed.  Cleary tipping is it not only unexpected, but apparently inappropriate. Everyone at K’s conference is amazed by this sort of thing as well.  For the most part, Istanbul is free of hassle.  Eye contact with a merchant outside his store usually elicits only a polite nod, or perhaps a quick inquiry: “Are you hungry?” “Interested in carpets” but if you say no, that’s the end of it.  No pestering.  Just a smile and another nod.  We have friends at the conference who’ve  come from Cairo, Deli, Bombay, Tehran, Jeruselem – they’re all amazed at Istanbul.  And very few of these people are here for the first time.  They claim to hardly recognize the city, compared to 10 years ago.  The streets are free of litter.  The buildings may be old, but they’re clean.  Rome and Paris have nothing on Istanbul in this regard.  The bathrooms are for he most part spotless. And everyone is so polite.  Even in the midst of what seems to be a potentially devastating lull in tourist activity, the merchants hang back. The kids in the street offer a shoe shine but rarely press their luck.
 
How can this happen?  How can an entire country change in the span of a decade.  I ask, and everyone seems to have the same answer: “They want to be European.”  But surely not EVERYONE. And surely this can’t be enforced.  In America we can’t get people to stop smoking or wear condoms – how on earth can an entire country “reform” (or conform”) spontaneously?
 
----
 
After running the gauntlet of triple-tier security at the airport (metal detectors and x-ray at the front entrance, after the ticket counters, and again at the gate) I’m confronted by a bizarre new form of convenience: The T-BOX.  This is a vending machine for clothes. T-shirts and underwear, mostly the classic, middle-eastern tank-tops, compressed into dense little packages of fabric and plastic the size of a cigarette pack.  I’m tempted to buy one, but at $15 for a little orange ball, I decide to settle for a photo instead.
 
----
 
On the flight and again the cola frenzy, but this time a third choice - Turk Cola.  Must try this at some point.  It seems the cheese-sandwich is a prime staple of the convenience-food cuisine in Turkey, and this makes me love the Turks all the more.  Cheese sandwiches in the terminal, and more on the flight.  The term “vejeteryan’ may only now be working its way into the vernacular, but it’s turning out to not be much of a problem.
 
----
 
Issues of Perception - I'm starting to worry about the language barrier.  Not in a practical sense - logistics seem to be working fine and I've finally leaned how to greet people (Merhaba) and order Diet Coke (Bir tani Coke Light, lutven).  Rather, I'm concerned that I'm missing something by relying on visual cues - prattling on about behavior I can only watch from a distance.  For all I know, the Turks loathe cola in all forms, but have it foisted on them by global conglomerates.  Someone at K's conference breakfast this morning insisted that the common Turk is a sad, bitter, oppressed person, and that the friendly smiles and courtesy they offer to foreigners is motivated by one thing: we're rich.  She insisted that any friendly gesture belies this sinister reality.
 
I have a hard time believing it – when so much of the kindness I’ve experienced has nothing to do with profit.  The bus driver this morning being an excellent example:  He went out of his way to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake getting off at the domestic terminal, carried my bag all the way to the first security point, and then refused a tip. And my bag was a well-worn massive black backpack.  Hardly a talisman of limitless wealth.
 
----
 
Finally – Asia.  The flight into Denizli brought us down low over an astonishing feature of geography – what I can only assume was a dry lakebed with concentric circles of brilliant white radiating out for miles and miles across the scrub-land in the shadow of gray craggy mountains.  From the air, I didn’t spot a town or even a village.  Just some squared-off fields and then the runway, barely distinct from the hard brown soil beside it.
 
The nearly empty flight landed a little late (after only 45 minutes of flying-time), taxied along for a few minutes and finally we came to a stop. Leaning against the window, I could just spot what is unquestionably the smallest airport I’ve ever visited (and this includes tiny little outposts on islands in the Caribbean and the Galapagos).  We climbed down the rickety metal steps and walked to the “terminal” building, actually a sparse steel shack about 80 yards long.  One door for arrivals. One for departures. 
 
The baggage arrived instantly and then I encountered the first little hiccup in my precise itinerary.  Apparently the town of Denizli is planning on some major expansion.  I say this because they've built the airport 60km from the town. But I had yet to find this out…
 
Once we'd arrived, the tiny airport/shack had two major vehicles serving it: our airplane on one side, and a large motor-coach on the other.  No other form of transport (or sign of civilization) from one horizon to the other.  I gathered the coach was the default way into town.  I thought we were being swindled when the conductor asked for "alti million" lira - I double checked my phrasebook and yes, this meant 6,000,000 Lira! (It only cost me 7,000,000 for the 30 minute airport shuttle from Taksim in Istanbul – the most expensive city in Turkey.)
 
Then I realized - we had an hour-long bus-ride ahead of us. Late plane.  Extra hour in transit.  Hmmm. I decided not to worry.  My plan allows for such contingencies.
 
----
 
3:04 PM – I’m sitting in the front seat of the coach (better view out the front window). Twenty minutes into the drive and a massive red-alert indicator begins to blink on the dash, accompanied by a deafening electronic whine. The driver casually pulls over to the shoulder and he and the conductor hop out. 
 
They reappear five minutes later, and we're on our way again.  No idea what’s wrong, but I start to worry about another delay.. To celebrate his victory over the red-alert lamp, the driver decides to start up a little music, fiddling with the radio as we careen along. Fortunately there’s no-one else on the road to flatten as we veer across the lanes.
 
I’ve decided that I almost like Turkish music. In Egypt, the tinny-techno drum-machines and nasal vocals may be heart-wrenchingly evocative when played on a decent sound system, but Egyptians seem to be forever ambitious when it comes to the wattage their stereos can provide. Result: constant distortion. Sadly, the questionable pop-production values combined with maximum volume over speakers blown long ago has completely put me off what K semi-affectionately refers to as “habibi” music (so deemed because “habibi” is the one word that every lyric composed in the last 20 years must contain by law.  Or so it would seem.).
 
But the Turkish music – while equally exotic sounding – tends to involve less frenetic arrangements, a little more variety, and simply a vibe that I’m really learning to enjoy. Plus it’s played at a volume in-line with the capacity of whatever stereo it’s emanating from.
 
----
 
I count down the kilometers as the road signs flash by: “Denizli – 50k…40km…30km…”  - then suddenly we jerk to a stop.  "Pamukkale!  Pamukkale!" the conductor screams.  A few touristy-looking people start disembarking. I'd planned to go all the way to the Denizli Otogar (bus station) and then catch a mini-bus back to Pamukkale for about a dollar.  But now I sense a way to make up time.  Well, I hope that's what it is.  Really, I just nod and get off the bus.
 
As the coach pulls away, I'm left standing in the middle of nowhere. With a little caravan of yellow taxis.  Looks like I'm taking a cab.
 
In the end, I do make up massive amounts of time as the taxi zooms me from the motorway to front door of my pension in the tiny village of Pamukkale, but it costs me 30,000,000 lira - more than I'd budgeted for the whole day’s expenses.. I just try to smile and think that $20 here and there isn’t going to kill me.  At least I’ve arrived.  My new home in Asia. 
  


|

Today, a private excursion to the Thracian town of Edirne. Secretly, I long to hide-out at the hotel and sleep, but the organizer of our trip insists that it's an opportunity that can't be missed. My tormenter is a relentlessly energetic guy called Nimrod, an Israeli geographer who once worked as a tour guide in Istanbul and still has a driving need to ensure everyone experiences the best of every aspect of Turkey. It’s a noble but exhausting agenda. (And yes, I’m using his real name; I could change it to protect the innocent, but Nimrod is hardly innocent, and he's more than capable of protecting himself.)

Edirne is a "small" town of 120,000 people on the Turkish/Greek/Bulgarian border. And Nimrod assures us it will provide a taste of what life is "really like" in Turkey. But more importantly, it is the site of the Selimiye Camii, Sinan's masterpiece, the mosque for which he claims Süleymaniye was only a trial run.

Nimrod's rounded up five of us to go-in together on a rental car, and so K and I drag ourselves down to the street, running strictly on nervous energy. And what sort of car should the rental agency provide? Naturally, a Ford Focus. I ride in the front, feeling more foreign riding in the passenger seat of my "own" car than I would have in the back seat of a Fiat Taxi or a Renault driving on the wrong side of the street.

Nimrod’s at the wheel, and he sets a grueling pace. We cover the 150km in less than two hours, cruising well over 140kph once we hit the wonderfully maintained and nearly empty highway - Turkey's stretch of the TEM (Trans-European-Motorway). Nimrod assures me I'd be much less impressed with the roads if we crossed over into Greece.

We stop for a quick pida (doughy-pizza) in a café, with friendly waiters and the ever-present pictures of Atatürk. The reverence for Atatürk is astounding. There are many different images to chose from: the young soldier in military garb, the political reformer in a simple western suit – and this café seems to have one from every stage of his life. But it’s not uncommon. Every establishment of any kind has a representation of him in a place of honor, somewhere. It’s an almost religious reverence for the man that pioneered the modernized, anti-religious state; he’s the secular Dali Lama of Turkey.

After our lunch we’re lead to the most important sites first. Nimrod assures us that “the day is yours” and “we do whatever you like” but I sense there’s a list that must be checked off, and Selimiye is at the top.



And it is an amazing structure. It’s been said (though never by me) that once you’ve seen one mosque, you’ve seen them all… And this jaded attitude contains a kernel of truth. Unlike the often cluttered but enormously varied baroque or gothic Cathedrals of Europe, packed full of marble statuary, exquisite frescoes and the odd gruesome reliquary, mosques tend to be simple affairs. Large open spaces – perhaps a hint of delicate decoration in the vaulted ceilings or domes. But no Bernini altars. No Caravaggio paintings or Bayeux tapestries.

But the mosques in Edirne are somehow unique. The Selimiye is a vast, light space. A unique design of integrated load-bearing pillars allows for the weight of the massive dome to be shifted from the walls, and thus ornate windows illuminate the space from every direction. (Our guide yesterday counted “too much light” as one of the anti-mosque failings of the Nuruosmaniye Camii, so I wonder what she would think of the magnificent symmetry but brilliant openness of Sinan’s work in Edirne.) Again there’s the laid-back atmosphere, a few men praying, more men just clustered in conversation. A little fountain and pool occupies the center of the mosque, beneath a prayer reader’s platform. It’s makes for a simple but striking centerpiece.



We sit on the carpet off to one side and marvel at the detail of the tile work and the unique design. Unlike mosques in Egypt, in which I always felt an out-of-place invader, here I feel comfortable. Relaxed.

Nimrod tells us a lovely little anecdote about how even the soot from the candles that hang in a ring around the center of the mosque was once considered holy; scholars used to hang tarps above the candles to collect the soot, which was later used when copying out holy texts.

The Eski Cami across the street is older (1414) and less refined, but equally inviting. Reused Roman columns line the front, and massive 20 foot high calligraphic symbols decorate the walls inside and out.



The fearless Nimrod strikes up a conversation with a bearded and black-robed holy man in the mosque, kneeling beside one of the few windows and studying a tome that looks nearly as old as the mosque itself. In such cases, Nimrod slips easily into Arabic conversation, and always explains quickly that he’s Australian (and he passes as easily for a butch Australian as he does for the Israeli he is) and manages to dodge any potential political hassle. The holy man is happy to share the text, though seems intent on keeping the end of each passage secret. Nimrod can’t quite figure out why. Mysticism, I suppose. (Or maybe he knows Nimrod’s secret.)



He starts up another conversation with some tourists from Arabia, and tells me quickly in English, “You’re Greek now, OK?” I’m not sure I want to be Greek, (I don't think I have the love for life or the gregarious spirit of the Islands. A descendant a Plato, maybe…), but I nod and listen-in anyway, not understanding a word. Nimrod later explains that the men thought I looked Turkish, and the easiest explanation was that I was Greek. This seems to be a common misconception. In all the markets, often men speak first to me in their native tongue, then ask, “Turkish?” I thought it part of a standard spiel – “Ah, you look Turkish. For you, special Turkish price.” But that sales-pitch never materializes, and maybe there’s something to it after all…

Nimrod is clearly in tour-guide mode, and has an extensive list of places we just MUST see: Uşçerefeli Cami, Atatürk’s statue in Freedom Square (celebrating the reclamation of Edirne from those pesky domineers of Thrace, the Greeks), the tumbling wooden houses of Kaleichi, tea by the Ottoman bridge, the supposedly before-its-time hospital of Beyazid Kulliyesi, where new age concepts like Music Therapy were employed to treat the mentally ill. There’s a little re-creation of a period treatment, with docile looking mannequins politely taking their treatment, one or two patients to a room. Probably nothing like the screaming, stench-ridden madhouse it was. But at least there was music.

Finally, after some of the ice-cream Edirne is supposedly famous for (it’s got a strange, gelatinous consistency, like half-frozen marshmallow cream), a stop at an old Caravanserai and a photo-op at a Roma encampment, we’re back on the motorway and speeding home.

I’m in the front seat, and the more nervous passengers ride in the back. It’s a good thing, because Nimrod is determined to push the Focus to its limit. We fly along at nearly 160kph most of the way, but at one point (admittedly, going down hill) we actually top 200kph. That’s a land-speed record for me, I think. The speedometer goes up to 220, but reason prevails and we don’t go for it. I does make me think that I’m wasting the powerful racing potential of my Focus back in the States.

As we zoom along, Nimrod spouts off bizarre nonsense about automobile engineering (always drive through rough, bumpy gravel very fast, because the shock-absorbers don't start working until 60kph...) and regales us with joyous memories of driving across the U.S. "People there really know how to drive. They stay in their lanes. They drive the same speed." he says as we veer across three lanes at 150kph, dodging a tractor and a cluster of daring cows. More often I hear just the opposite from European visitors, frustrated with the Americans’ lack of "lane-discipline" - slow cars in the left lane, the casual approach to signaling turns, etc. But I suppose if staying between the lines impresses you, then US highways are a automotive paradise.

It’s dark by the time we get back to Istanbul and navigate the mad congestion at the toll booth. One thing that’s certainly not “western” about Turkey is the refusal to respect any kind of line. Cars zoom along, over shoulders and between “lanes” doing their best to push ahead as boys run between the cars, hawking cigarettes.

It’s an adventure to be sure, but I’m glad to see my bed.




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