16th June 2006 - the many faces of Turkey

Looking back over our previous entries since we arrived in Turkey, we haven't really said much about our impressions of the country and its people.  Perhaps that's because we had only really seen Istanbul at that point and it's never that easy to form an impression of a country based on a visit to its largest city.  Certainly that's always been what we both feel about judging England on the basis of London.

We can now definitely say that we've seen a wide enough variety of places to comment (although we've still only seen a tiny proportion of this vast country!).  After the contrasts of Istanbul (from the constant touts in the touristy Sultanahmet and Bazaar districts to the young, trendy (hardly a headscarf in sight) cosmopolitan city in Beyoglu on the north side of the Golden Horn river and back to the conservative (98% of adult females wearing headscarves) suburb of Yenibosna where we stayed), we drove south to Selcuk, skirting the Sea of Marmara and driving straight cross-country to Selcuk.  On the advice of our Australian friends John and Mandy, we skipped the coast north of Selcuk (including Gallipoli and Troy) and nothing we heard from other travellers made us regret this.  It gave us a chance to spend 5 nights at the backpacker's oasis that is Atilla's Getaway, just outside Selcuk, which worked out perfectly as Lizzy had time (and a perfect spot by the pool!) to do a few translations to earn some extra funds for the trip (thanks, Emmy and Carla!).  And Roel had time to do what he likes best, lounging by the pool and making new friends!

The main draw in Selcuk is the ruins of Ephesus, just outside the modern town of Selcuk.  These form the best-preserved Roman city we have seen anywhere and as you stroll along the broad stone-paved roads, exploring the (often well-preserved) buildings on either side, it takes little imagination to see it populated by Romans going about their daily business.  Selcuk itself is a pleasant, relaxed little town, focused on the backpacker tourism market - wisely, most of the touts seem to have realised (despite the fact that so far this has been a spectacularly bad season according to everyone we spoke to working in tourism) that the 'hard-sell' approach is counterproductive with backpackers, who prefer to spend what little money they have in shops and restaurants where the staff are helpful rather than pushy and give you time to browse and select what you actually want.  This made a change from our next destination just a few kilometres down the road, the package holiday resort of Kusadasi, where we were constantly pursued along the streets by people wanting to know where we were from or whether they could ask us a question (by which time they already had!).  Although many seemed more genuinely friendly than in Istanbul, we still found it hugely off-putting.  Ever since we were first accosted by touts in Istanbul (a particularly nasty experience, where we had to run away from a street of restaurants recommended by the Lonely Planet because every single restaurant had a man outside shouting at us and brandishing menus, comes to mind), we have really wondered which tourists respond well to this kind of attack.  Observing (from a safe distance) the predominance of white socks on those persuaded by such tactics in Istanbul, we had concluded that Americans were the culprits (sorry, Susan), but as we didn't spot any Americans in Kusadasi we had to add cruise-ship passengers (and possibly package tourists in general) to our list of suspects.  It's still baffling though - any answers, please let us know...

The main reason for our visit to Kusadasi (not known for being one of the highlights of independent travel in Turkey) was to catch up with one of Roel's former colleagues, Stip, and his wife, Laura, who were holidaying in a lovely hotel right on the edge of the sea.  We had a very pleasant day wandering round town with them and managed to eat and drink in places frequented by locals rather than tourists, proving that there was another side to Kusadasi after all!

From Kusadasi, we headed inland to the famous 'travertine' pools at Pamukkale, where over time calcium deposits have formed a series of (startlingly white) pools.  Although we had heard that the travertines were much less impressive than they used to be, as the water level has dropped dramatically (due either to hotels above the pools or swimming pools in the village below, it doesn't seem to be clear) so that many of the pools are now dry and visitors aren't allowed to bathe in any of the original pools any more, we were still pretty impressed.  We didn't stop for the night as we were keen to get to our next destination, the tiny village of Hisar 100km south of Ankara, where Roel's former colleague Yusuf comes from.  Yusuf still has a house there and he and his family were there for their five-week summer holiday.  After leaving Pamukkale we bush-camped in the middle of nowhere and drove cross-country on many confusing, signpost-free and dusty back roads through stunning scenery of broad valleys and high barren hills, finally reaching Hisar in the middle of the afternoon.  After the 35 degree heat of Selcuk and Kusadasi, it was wonderful to be on the high cool plateau of Anatolia.  Yusuf and his family gave us a fantastic welcome and made us feel completely at home during the three days we spent with them.  It was amazing to be able to share the daily life of a Turkish (extended) family living in a small village.  Although Yusuf and his wife and his youngest son, Sirdar, were all visiting from their present home in the Netherlands and spoke to us in Dutch, the other members of the family all lived in Turkey all year round and spoke only Turkish and Kurdish.  With the aid of our Dutch-speaking interpreters, we were able to chat a little to everyone.  Lizzy was welcomed particularly warmly by the women, who tended to spend much of their time separately from the men, preparing the food and performing the household duties.  We were plied with huge amounts of delicious food, all homemade, including the yoghurt, cheese and butter.  We went on a tractor ride up the mountain that overlooks Hisar and explored the ancient ruins on the top with Yusuf while Yusuf's neighbour, Mehmet, and his wife prepared a fantastic feast of grilled chicken, which we ate overlooking the valley below.

On the fourth day, we regretfully dragged ourselves away from Hisar and drove further east, along the beautiful, shimmering pink Tuz Golu (Salt Lake), to Goreme, in Cappadocia.  The conical rock formations of Cappadocia were just as spectacular as we had been led to expect and it was great to camp at Berlin Camping on the edge of Goreme right in the middle of the 'cones'.  We were pleased to spot a couple of other roof-tents as we arrived, one of which turned out to belong to our friends Norbert and Ruth (www.expeditie-walkabout.nl), who hadn't got quite so far ahead of us as we'd thought!  The other, self-made and patented, roof-tent belonged to a German couple who were on their way back from 10 months travelling round Africa.  We also met a German motorcyclist who was heading to Georgia, Russia and all the 'Stans', followed by India and Australia, and planning to be away for four years!  We were quite envious!  We spent a pleasant, sociable couple of days in Goreme, which, though touristy, was quite chilled-out and friendly.  On the morning of the third day, we said farewell to Norbert and Ruth, who would be heading straight to Iran while we went to Syria and Jordan first, and drove south towards Syria.  We stopped en route to explore the underground city at Kaymakli, which was very cool (in both senses) and very low (in places Roel had to bend more than double!), and the rock-cut churches of the Ihlara Valley, which were a bit of a scramble up from the path but worth it as some of them had beautiful frescoes.  Deciding to drive on from Ihlara in order to be in Syria as soon as possible, we spent the night in the city of Adana (the fourth largest city in Turkey).  As this was quite far east, we had expected it to be relatively conservative, but it turned out to be surprisingly westernised and many of the women we saw were wearing clothes that were fairly revealing even by European standards.  Adana had a pleasant vibe, which was a nice surprise and made us really enjoy our short time there.  We were also pleasantly surprised by the motel where we camped, which turned out to have a lovely swimming pool.  All in all, a very good end to the first part of our travels in Turkey!