TÜRKIYE’S MEDITERRANEAN COAST – KAŞ TO SELÇUK

Nov. 6, 2000
Yavuz Oteli, Antalya, Türkiye

Yesterday, we went back to the Owl Bookstore and traded in the books we had read for some new ones. We then went to Turkish Airlines to see about getting tickets home. Deanna decided to go to Philadelphia and not use her ticket back from Paris. Turkish Air only flew to Orly and my ticket home left from Charles de Gaulle Airport, so I went over to the internet café and found a Lufthansa flight for $367, but was unable to book it because they didn’t do electronic tickets and I didn’t have time to go to a travel agent. Deanna had arrived at the internet café, by this time, and I left her there so that I could pick up the laundry. It was getting near to 13:00, when Nevsut was going to pick us up to take us to the otogar.

I was hurrying through a part of Kaleiçi where I had never been before when I heard a foreign voice say, “Hi, Baby.” I ignored it and kept going. I heard the voice say, “Hi, Baby,” a second time, but I was late and hurried on. Then I heard, “Rene,” and I looked up to find Chris and Yvonne eating lunch in a garden café. We had a quick chat and I dashed off to the laundry. I received the laundry and arrived just as Nevsut pulled up in Bayram’s taxi. I checked out and Deanna eventually showed up ten minutes late.

Of course, Murat had not given Nevsut the money for the bus tickets to Kaş. Nevsut offered to pay for them, but we told him that the ride to the otogar (worth more than the 6 million lire fare to Kaş) was enough, since he wasn’t the one who cheated us. He gave us his cell phone number and told us we could call 24 hours a day if we needed him. We said goodbye and went to get something to eat before the 14:10 bus. Deanna had a hamburger and I, having stuffed myself on Esra’s omelette and gözleme, just went to the büfé to get some cookies for the bus. I met a nice Kurdish guy at the büfé who was from Diyarbakir. We chatted for so long that Deanna thought I was trying to buy the büfé.

We took a minibus to Kaş. It took nearly five hours and we went back to all the places we had been on the gulet. We even stopped in Finike next to the hamam we had considered visiting. Deanna was dissatisfied with our bus seats (she thought they would be sunny) so she sat on the other side of the bus and talked to a Turkish woman who had been a radio operator on merchant ships. It turned out that she ended up on the sunny side and I got two seats to myself nearly the whole way. It was a long ride and it was dark when we got to Kaş. We came over a range of mountains and down a long, steep hill into town. I was worried that the bus brakes might burn up before we got there.

Kaş

We tried to go to the White House Pensiyon, but it was closed. November first marked the end of the tourist season in Türkiye. We ended up going to the Ateş Pension, which was recommended by one of the touts at the otogar. It had its plusses and minuses. The staff was friendly and we had a big room with a nice balcony and two clotheslines. I had a comfy, big bed with two pillows but Deanna’s bed was pretty awful. There was plenty of hot water coming out of the faucet, but none of it could be convinced to come out of the shower.

We walked down the hill and had a nice dinner in a restaurant by the water with three begging cats for company. We could hear loud music and, after dinner, we followed it to its source, which turned out to be a wedding down near the harbor. There was a huge horseshoe of resin chairs, four or five deep, with a band at the open end and people dancing in the center. The wedding party danced and the whole town watched. The band was great. There was a fiddler who was truly possessed by the music and a fellow with a bass drum who mingled with the dancers. Deanna would have stayed there all night, but I was too tired to stand there and breathe cigarette smoke all night. We left after 45 minutes or so. I fell asleep immediately when we reached our room.

The Amphitheater in Kaş

I was blasted out of sleep by the muezzin at 5:15. He awakened the neighbor who coughed all morning and it was just got noisier and noisier after that. Some large piece of machinery made a racket that resounded from one side of the canyon to the other.

Olive Grove in Kaş

We had a quick breakfast on the nice terrace with an ocean view and then ran off the see the sights. Kaş is a beautiful, little harbor surrounded by steep mountains. There are islands off the coast and the views are spectacular, although there are no sandy beaches. I really liked Kaş and would have liked to stay to enjoy the big bed, clotheslines, and internet connection at the pensiyon. Deanna, however, was determined to leave, so there was no way for me to resist. We took a quick walk around town and went out to see the amphitheater. The theater was in an olive grove with a great view of the sea. I took a number of pictures, since it was as typical a Mediterranean scene as I could imagine.We left Kaş on the 11:30 bus to Fethiye.  At first, we followed the coast. We passed through Kalkan, a pretty coastal town, Patara, and Xanthos, which was once the capitol of the Lycian state and still boasts a couple of Lycian pillar tombs, though it was mostly ruined by the Romans in 42 A.D. From Xanthos, we drove to Uğurlu and then took the turnoff for Fethiye, arriving just after 14:00.

I wanted to either eat in the otogar and then hop the 14:30 bus to Marmaris, so we’d get there before dark, or stop over night in Fethiye. Deanna wouldn’t hear of either of these ideas, so we argued a bit and then ended up doing exactly what she wanted to do because she generally ignored my suggestions. She had traveled so much by herself that she really didn’t consider the fact that I had opinions, also. After two months, I was getting tired of being accommodating. We walked two kilometers to the center of town so that she could have lunch. At least the food was good. I had sausage with cheddar cheese baked in an iron dish. We walked a little way up the hill to look at some elaborate Lycian rock art tombs on the way back and then followed a rushing stream all the way back to the otogar, just in time to climb on the 16:00 bus to Marmaris.

Our original idea had been to take one gulet from Antalya to Fethiye and another from Fethiye to Marmaris. While the weather remained pleasant, all the gulets had stopped sailing as of November first. We had been lucky to get as far as we did.

Both buses that we took that day were minibuses with tiny seats and no springs. We jolted, rattled, and jarred our way for another three and a half hours to Marmaris. It was too jerky even to read and made for a pretty boring ride, especially after it got dark.

From Fethiye, we drove to Dalaman, an ugly, agricultural town with nothing to offer but an airport. We drove through pine covered mountains most of the way, through Ortaca and Köyceğiz, and then turned off for Marmaris at Gökova. The road got better after we took the turnoff. Prior to that, I thought we’d never make it.

We arrived at about 19:30 and the otogar was very dark and quiet. We had to beg for a taxi to take us into town. We dropped our bags and went out so Deanna could get some dinner. Most places were closed at that time of year, so we had to walk quite a way before Deanna could find anything she wanted to eat. There were a lot of independent dogs running around Marmaris and many of them appeared to have Basset Hound ancestry. We ate by the harbor and then came back to the room to do laundry.

 
Nov. 8, 2000
Yavuz Oteli, Marmaris, Türkiye

Marmaris

We got up, yesterday, and had breakfast in the hotel dining room. They tried to serve us fried eggs, but the yolks were broken and they stuck to the pan. We walked west down the main street to Diana Tours to see about plane tickets, ferries to Rhodes, and trips to Pamukkale. We were escorted by a lanky, black lab. Diana Tours wasn’t much help. They couldn’t sell me a plane ticket and, as Turkish Airlines only flies to Orly, I guessed I couldn’t make arrangements until we got to İstanbul. The ferries to Rhodes had stopped running regularly. We would have had to stay two nights and we had neither the time nor the desire to pay for a Greek visa, so going to Rhodes was out. We discussed what order to visit Bodrum, Pamukkale, Aphrodesius, and Ephesus and decided that it would be best to go to Bodrum first.

From the travel agency, we wandered across the street to a very nice internet café. The connection was fast for Türkiye, but I still accomplished nothing in three hours spent there. I was unable to secure a plane ticket because I could not mail the ticket to my home address and none of the airlines would do electronic ticketing. I almost managed to do it through American Airlines, but their website blew up every time I tried to price a ticket from İstanbul. Maybe I would be able to get a cheap charter flight from İstanbul to Paris, one way. I could not send any email messages, so I was unable to take care of any business.

After spending three frustrating hours at the internet café, we walked across town in search of lunch. Down toward the marina, we discovered a Chinese restaurant that actually served pork. Since we had to stop and look in every jewelry store (I never want to look at another pair of gold earrings!) along the way, it was 15:00 by the time we got there. We splurged on a lunch of Peking duck, fried rice, shrimp noodles, soup, and sweet and sour pork. It wasn’t great as Chinese food went, but it was a nice change and well worth the 20 million lire. We remarked that it was sad that of the four best meals we had eaten in Türkiye, three were Chinese and the fourth was Indian. Mustafa’s mantı got my vote for best Turkish food. The restaurant had a nice view of the harbor and there were four orange kitties of varying sizes to keep us company.

The Marina in Marmaris

By the time we finished lunch, the sun was starting to set. We walked along the bar street, which was pretty much shut down during that season, and over to the Netsel marina. We decided to go and see Jean and Rob, a sailing couple from England that we had met in the street in Antalya. When we met, we had instantly recognized each other as sailors and they told us to drop by if we came to Marmaris. As we started around the marina in search of L-62, we ran into Jean on her bicycle. She was going shopping but figured she could conclude her errand and return before we could walk all the way around to their boat.

We strolled through the marina and checked out the luxurious shore head facilities (too much beer with the Chinese food) and the immense cruising fleet. Eventually, we found Schiehallion, despite the fact that none of the slips were numbered. What did we expect in a country where most of the streets were unmarked?  Rob invited us aboard amd Jean arrived just after we did. We had a beer in the cockpit and then moved into the main salon for a second one. The boat had rather a low budget interior, but the layout was nice and there were teak decks even though the interior cabinetry appeared to be formica or cheap veneer. We had a nice visit and looked at Rob’s watercolors. He was quite a talented painter and sold miniature watercolors to tourists during the season. He gave each of us a card with one of his paintings on the front and their address on the back. They seemed very happy living aboard in Marmaris. Oh, it would have been nice to be part of a cruising couple!  Maybe someday …

It was 20:00 by the time we got back to the neighborhood of our hotel. We stopped for some dessert and then I went to the internet café while Deanna went back to the room. I stayed for almost three hours and managed to send most of the messages I needed to send, as well as catch up on my travel news series. It was after 23:00 by the time I got back to the hotel.

Deanna didn’t feel well the next morning, so I got up and went to the castle while she slept in. It was a beautiful, warm morning and I had a nice walk along the beach into town. As of that week, everything in Marmaris, at least, was closed down. Restaurants and bars were closed for the winter, many shops were vacant, and the whole place, which was down to about 10% of its summer population, had an aura of desertion, especially before 10:00 when nothing at all was open.

Marmaris from the Castle

I went to the bus company to see if there was a later bus, since I knew I could never get Deanna on the 10:30 one we had planned to take. Then I went to the grocery store and bought her a bag of salt so she could gargle regularly. I wandered around the bazaar and was able to window shop without being hassled, since everything was closed. I would have loved to buy a leather jacket, but I didn’t like any of the styles I had seen. Eventually, I worked my way up to the castle, which had been closed when we passed it the day before. 

Marmaris has an excellent harbor and so had been important militarily. Lord Nelson once organised the British fleet, there, for an attack on the French in 1798. The castle was built by Süleyman the magnificent in 1522 when he amassed 200,000 troops in Marmaris for an attack and seige of Rhodes. Being a mere 500 years old, it was in excellent condition. It is an attractive building with a commanding view of both the harbor and town, although it cannot be seen from afar because it is now buried in the covered bazaar. The walls are lined with crenellations, each of which has a little point on it. The castle is ostensibly a museum, but there isn’t much of interest other than a couple of rusty anchors and some granite cannonballs. The interior is a lovely garden, though, with lots of lantana and bougainvilla. I was the only visitor and the keeper was quite surprised to see me. At that time of year, all foreigners were assumed to be residents, since the tourist hordes had departed. While it was inconvenient for sightseeing, it was nice not to have everyone trying to sell me something.  I had a pleasant walk back to the hotel through the deserted bazaar and along the shore. I was escorted by a shaggy-haired, black Basset Hound mix who bounced and barked playfully all the way back to the hotel.

Nov. 10, 2000
Hotel Seçkin Kondalar, Bodrum, Türkiye

The Harbor at Marmaris

Deanna declined to get up when I got back to the hotel and the next bus didn’t leave until 14:15. When I finished writing in my journal, I went for another walk through the deserted back streets of Marmaris. Eventually, I worked my way over to the main street and took a walk through the big, Targetlike department store called Tanşas. I wanted to buy an Ibrahim Tatlises CD but the only copy they had was open and scratched. I couldn’t find anything else to buy. From there, I wandered through the bazaar where a few stores were now open. I looked at leather jackets, but the women’s styles were all blazer-like and they wouldn’t let me look at the men’s. Prices were good, but the leather wasn’t very nice. I sat in a pastanesi and ate a few cookies and then walked back across town to the internet café, where I spent a productive forty minutes taking care of business. Then I went back to the hotel to make sure Deanna got moving in time to make the bus, since I had already bought the tickets and I knew she would demand lunch before we left.

We took a taxi to the bus station and had soup across the street, which left us just enough time to catch the service bus to the otogar. Once again, we were forced to take a minibus, but this one was a lot nicer and the roads were mostly better. It still took longer than advertised (We sat for 40 minutes at the Muğla otogar.) and we arrived in Bodrum after dark. The cabbies were unenthusiastic about taking us into town and the one we did get muttered to himself in Turkish the whole way. We tried three pensions and found them all closed before we came to the Hotel Seçkin Kondalar. It was a pretty nice place, except that the hot water was inconsistent, but they were only charging 18 million lire at that season, instead of the usual 40 million lire.

Bodrum

We walked across the western half of town (Bodrum has two bays, separated by the spit containing the castle) and back before settling on a restaurant called the Mausoleum. They were out of most of the attractive things on their menu, but I managed to get some reasonably decent chicken curry.

The following day, I had no energy at all. There was no hot water in the morning, so we had to wait until they turned it on and we barely made it to breakfast by 10:00. We walked around the western bay at the usual snail’s pace and so didn’t arrive at the castle until after 11:00. Since they closed from 12:00 to 13:00, we decided to wait until 13:00. We walked to the end of the harbor to see about ferries to Kos for today, had a cool drink, and then took a walk across the east side of town. Things were pretty quiet over there, too. I bought a bracelet for a friend’s daughter, a crystal mosque for my mother, and a small watercolor. Bodrum may have been Deanna’s favorite place, but I found it an ugly city built in a pretty location. The castle was attractive, but the rest of the buildings were white and square with flat roofs, rather than the usual red tile ones. It looked like Visitacion Valley on the Med coast. I much prefered Antalya, Kaş, or Marmaris. The dogs of Bodrum were very well fed. Many of them were downright fat. They lay in the sun and never even acknowledged our presence. There were no escort dogs in Bodrum. Even the cats didn’t beg much.

Nov. 10, 2000

The Castle in Marmaris

Hotel Seçkin Kondalar, Bodrum, Türkiye

We got back to the castle about 13:30 and stayed until they closed at 16:00. The museum of underwater archaeology is contained within the castle and they had a couple of replicas of wrecks and lots of the recovered cargo. The castle was large and had seven gates and five towers. There were wonderful views of Bodrum from the parapets. Apparently, they had landscaped since the last time Deanna was there and she complained, all afternoon, that it had been ruined. I thought it was rather nice. The castle was built by crusaders in 1522 and was lost to the Turks almost immediately. Unfortunately, it was built out of the stones from Mausoleus’ tomb (mausoleum) which was once one of the seven wonders of the world. The crusaders weren’t great preservers of indigenous culture.

We hadn’t eaten lunch, so we stopped at a café so Deanna could eat. There, we met a Turkish archaeologist who spoke English with an Australian accent. He worked with Dr. Bass, the guy from the museum that Deanna had wanted to work for. He put her on the phone with Dr. Bass and they conversed until the guy got agitated about his cell phone bill. She managed to get his phone number.

From there, we walked back to the hotel and went to bed since we were both exhausted. I woke up about 21:30 and didn’t get back to sleep until 1:30. I was tormented by mosquitoes for the second night, as Deanna insisted on leaving the unscreened window open as well as the screened one. Fortunately (for me,) she was bitten numerous times, so she finally consented to shut that window.

Ruins on Kos

We got up early and took the ferry to the Greek island of Kos. The ride took about an hour. It was warm and sunny and the water was blue, but the scenery was mostly barren. They wouldn’t exchange Turkish lire for drachmas, so we had to get money out of an ATM. We got 10,000 drachmas, which was about $30. They couldn’t change the bill at the castle, so we never got to see it, which was a shame since it looked very pretty from the entrance. We saw the 2300 year old plane tree of Hippocrates. Actually, it was a shattered old sycamore, whose branches were supported by a steel scaffold. The fountain for the nearby mosque (now a bar) was nestled under the foliage. It resembled a tomb. We wandered around the harbor area and saw the agora and ancient Greek and Roman cities. They became cities of cats when the local cat ladies came to feed and commune with their charges. We walked across town to the altar of Dionysus and the restored Roman house. This house was begun in Hellenistic times and finished about the third century, A.D. It was quite large and resembled a warehouse from the outside. Inside, it had three courtyards, one collonaded with a peristyle and two with cisterns. Most of the floors were decorated with mosaics and there was still some evidence of the painted plaster that once adorned the walls and columns. It was quite a palace.

Roman House Interior

Roman House Exterior

By the time we finished seeing the house, we had just enough time to eat lunch and see the castle. We walked back to the castle area but there were no Greek restaurants open so Deanna, who refused to eat fast food, dragged me clear back to the Roman house where there was a Greek restaurant serving very mediocre food. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to see the castle by the time we got back.

We got back to Bodrum about 16:00 and went back to the cafè, hoping to get Dr. Bass’s email address from our Turkish/Aussie friend. We had a beer and waited until about 17:00, but he never showed. Then we walked back to the hotel.

It must have been the anniversary of Ataturk’s death because there were wreaths and speeches around his statue and all the flags were at half mast.

 
Nov. 12, 2000
Artemis Guest House, Selçuk, Türkiye

The Remains of Mausoleus' Tomb

Yesterday, we got up and took a walk to Mausoleus’ tomb or “mausoleum.” It was once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but was torn down by the Knights Hospitaler in 1522 so that they could use the stone to reinforce the castle. This was all in vain because they lost the castle to the Turks almost immediately, anyway. Crusaders of all types seem to go in for futile gestures.

There wasn’t much left at the site. There were some remains of the lower walls and drainage system and some steps from earlier buildings. There were also a lot of column pieces lying about. There was a nice exhibition room with all kinds of information about the mausoleum, which had fascinated men for at least the past 475 years.

The mausoleum was built by Mausoleus’ sister and wife, Artemisia, who made quite a name for herself by defeating the Rhodesians by luring them ashore in one harbor and then sailing around from the other harbor and capturing all their boats. She then decorated all the boats as if for a victory celebration, sailed back to Rhodes in their own boats, and captured the island for Carria. This was reputed to have happened in the seventh century, B.C., so either she lived a very long time or someone has the dates screwed up. It was definitely all before the golden age of Greece, because someone wrote a diologue between Diogenes and Mausoleus, talking in the afterworld. Diogenes was chastising Mausoleus for being arrogant, saying that having the world’s greatest tomb didn’t count for much because he was still just a skeleton. The citizens of Bodrum were the only ones who could boast of the tomb. The only thing Mausoleus could say was that he had a greater burden resting on him.

Deanna and the Kitten in Selçuk

We went to the internet café across the street for an hour or so to transact business (The wire for my carpet finally got sent!) and then hopped on the bus to Selçuk. The ride took about three hours and we were mercifully traveling on a full sized bus. We got there about 15:00. We checked into the guest house and then went out for a nice lunch of mezes (Deanna had to have lamb chops, too, of course.) in a sidewalk café where an adorable, little ragamuffin of a kitten hopped into our laps and succeeded in chasing off two older relatives. I took a really cute picture of the kitten and Deanna rubbing noses.

After lunch, I bought the Ibrahim Tatlises CD I wanted and we walked through the Saturday market, which was already starting to break up. We went to the otogar to find out about buses to Pamukkale and stopped in the pastanesi there for dessert. Then we came back to the guest house where I watched a movie (Heat) for the first time since leaving home. The guest house had a great selection of DVDs, but the player wasn’t working. We had to settle for a videotape.