Turkey is sooo much more than Istanbul! We were not sure where to head at first but we came up with a pretty good plan and let me tell you it has worked out! We decided we would fly down to the south coast and work our way back up. It went like diiiis:
First, we flew to Antalya as a starting point. We had heard that the old town (Celeci) is the place to stay, but you have to walk there (LIE). So we took the bus from the airport and got out to walk what we thought was about 300 meters. With getting lost, crazy directions, tiny streets, it took about an hour, I think we walked over a km with our giant ass backpacks, and what is in front of our hotel at the far end of old town? A CAR RENTAL AGENCY. Ahem. Anywho, minus that (and through this post you should know that Turkey has had what can only be called a 'Crazy Ass Heatwave' that is a scientific term, and until today (Ephesus) it has been between 113-115 degrees and HUMID. Don't worry, at night it drops to like 90 and humid...) So needless to say, we stopped for a little airconditioning break before heading out. What did we head out for? Hawaiian shave ice obviously, isn't that what you go to a historic Turkish town for?
The next day, we slept in a bit (earned it!) and headed over to check out a traditional Turkish bath. This involves: sweating on a marble slab, being scrubbed, getting a soap massage (fun!), hanging out in funny giant sized dish towels, and an oil massage. It was hilarious. Particularly because we ended up being together because there was just one old guy working, so he would swtich back and forth and in between each thing he would wash you, by which i mean throw bowls full of water at you from across the room. Hilarious.
After that we spent the afternoon exploring old town (adorable), shopping (I bought a cuuute hat), eating (Mike's new fave- haydari-a better version of tzatziki, who knew?!). A lovely town.
The next day we TOOK A TAXI (duh) to the bus station and grabbed a bus (actually a dolmus, a little shared van) to Cirali (the best part is that sometimes they drive with the door open and honk at people they pass to troll for passengers). Then they drop you off on the side of the road. Then a van shows up (read: ghetto dolmus) and piles everyone in and drives you down. Ours had about 14 people in like a 10 person van. Woot.
In any event we made it. The beach there is gorgeous, huge hills/mountains in the background, you can see the ruins of Olympos right off the beach, blue water. Lovely. Most of Turkey has rock not sand beaches, which I kind of liked, you can even lie down on the rocks without a towel (it’s like a hot stone massage, particularly when it’s like 113 degrees!) Our second day we explored the Olympos ruins. They are cute, and fun because it’s kind of abandoned looking and super quiet. There is a tomb there for someone named Marcus Aurelious but we couldn’t decide if it was the real one, if so, kind of lame tomb for an important guy… Fun though over all, and when we were sure we were about to spontaneously combust from the heat, we went for a swim. Yay!
That night we went to the Chimera. Wondering what it is? So are scientists, ba dum bum! No seriously, it’s a place where flames come out of the ground, steady, continuously for ehhh, a few thousand years. It looks like a bunch of campfires on a mountain, except there is no fuel, and they stay constant. It was so random, and awesome, oh and the hottest Mike has ever been in his life (I still say Masada), but this time it was 9 pm, pitch black and absurdly hot. We got back to the hotel and our hotel guy was like ‘how are you?’ and I was like, “hot, this heat is killing me” and he goes “it’s not the heat, it’s the humid” and I was like, “I’m not in the mood for semantics, I’ve sweat through my clothes” (well, I didn’t say that outloud, I just went upstairs and got naked in the air conditioning, but I was thinking it really hard)
Our last morning, I got up to try to see sea turtles nesting (tis the season there) but alas it was not a turtle day, in exchange I was treated with a gorgeous sunrise, so I guess it all worked out.
From there it was on to Kas (sounds like Kaj or cash with a long a). When we got to the hotel, a girl was working the counter (not the owner), so the second time we came in, he said hi as we walked by, we are halfway up the stairs and he comes after us and yells, “welcome to Kas”, but I hear, “you pay cash?” (which we hear more often), and I go, “no we’ll pay by credit”. Damn I am soooo (unintentionally) funny.
Kas was a very cute town, our hotel had an awesome roof deck (good for watching the golden hour) you could see the town, the ocean the surrounding hills, lovely. We got some good swimming in during our full day (there is no beach there, just little concrete decks built in to the rocks with beach chairs & umbrellas where you can jump into the water, clever really). We ate some great food there, soaked in the sights, swam, shopped (who knew we needed Turkish towels… we did, they are sooo cute) and generally caught up on life.
From there we took an epic bus ride (6 hours to a 1 hour connection, bleh) although our first bus was fancy shmancy and had individual tvs with cable (and no English except a creepy movie with sawyer from lost and half of ratatouille which inexplicably turned off in the middle, Mike will never know how they resovle that little rat chef!) to end up in Selcuk (said like Sell Chuck, ha.) where we went to go see Ephesus.
Ephesus is an ancient city, rebuilt a million times by a crap ton of different people (again, scientific term, I learn them from my sister, she's got a PhD) but the city you go to (the only excavated stuff) is Greek with Roman fancy updates. It is super fun, and we chanced it by signing up for a tour and got a really great tour guide on a little bus with good air con and 5 other nice people. We also got to stop at the Temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world) which actually only has one remaining pillar (out of 127) and go up to a pilgrimage site where the virgin mary supposedly lived (and perhaps died). Both cool and interesting and we got to go because of the nice tour. Yay! In any event, Ephesus is a pretty cool place to spend a morning, minus the fact that the site was totally raided by British and Austrian archeologists and now most of the friezes and statues are in museums in Vienna....
Our last Turkish day we went to Izmir, which as it turns out wasn't as necessary as we thought (the airport is halfway between Izmir and Selcuk). But regardless, it was cute, there was a fun bazaar, some final baklava and Mike got to see SALT! I'm finishing this post up from Budapest (we're here on a 20 hour layover, I know, there is no reason to be here between Istanbul and Athens, but when you're on a free round the world ticket, you take the connections you get...) and our very short interlude here was lovely. A walk at sunset, dinner and beer by the river, a swing band. Life ain't bad.
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