21. A long drive in Turkey

12th December 2008
We decided that we should explore our surroundings so we hired a car and went for a drive. It was quite a long one – around 1000kms which lasted a week! What we discovered is that this part of Turkey, the Aegean region, is very mountainous, has a lot of trees, fertile plains and a huge number of Greek and Roman remains.

First we drove down the Datca Peninsula, Marmaris at its root and the southern land mass creating the Gokova Gulf in which we are staying. On this trip we decided that the word “amazing” had to be graded because we keep on using the word. “amazing view”, “amazing rock formation”, “amazing experience”, “amazing Roman construction technique”, “amazing renovation” ... and so on. I guess you get the picture. The mountains, forests, bays and beaches on the Datca Peninsula were...well, amazing.

Datca itself, along with all the other towns and villages we visited on this trip, in contrast with the popular touristic Marmaris, is obviously poor. It is a port of entry to Turkey but its harbour, hotels and tourist attractions look very run-down so the locals are having to get on with life without too many tourists. This suits us fine but as always with areas where tourists visit, people start relying on the tourist $ and stop doing the stuff they used to do. They invest heavily in things they think the tourist wants which often puts off the discerning tourist and so the $ dry up. By this time the farm land has been built on and skills forgotten, leaving behind a ghost town and a few elderly people. And, yes, we are part of the problem.

Most people we see are, in the local vernacular, peasants. Subsistence farming is the main occupation of the majority of people we saw when on our drive. You can buy a kilo of any citrus fruit for 1TYL or 50c (there are 2TYL to 1€ - we have to think in Euros here as the £ is too volatile). When we stop to buy, the seller breaks into a huge grin and insists on giving us lots of extras. Being generous back to the Turks is almost impossible. We are eating citrus fruits till they come out of our ears but are making no dent in the supply here. There is a real glut as there are mile upon mile of orange groves and it seems that the only way many farmers have to sell is from the roadside or from the back of a truck. In the supermarkets, depressingly, the fruit is under 1TYL a kilo. When we drove between Marmaris and Mugla on our way up North we passed seller after seller, each one with literally tons of fruit.

Mugla was cold as it is some metres above sea-level and we were under dressed! It is Byram – an important Muslim week long holiday - and everyone was walking the streets with their children, dressed in their very best clothes greeting their friends, so we as always stick out like a sore thumb. Andy had shorts and sailing peaked cap on! At least I had coat and scarf but I was still cold. Mugla is built on a mountainside and is untouched by tourists so is, what we call, a real town. It is a market town with a huge weekly farmers (or Turkish) market, thus bringing some prosperity. The town was closed for Byram except, strangely, the museum which was very interesting.

We learnt about the gladiators – how they were trained bodybuilders – treated like a racehorse might be today by their owners. Each gladiator specialises in certain weapons and techniques and the fights are designed to match the gladiators in strength and experience. The fight is to the death and the victor may be lucky and spared but the Emperor had the final say and often, to show their power, had the victor slain by slitting his throat. Occasionally, if the gladiator had won many good victories, he was freed and there are records showing freed gladiators living well into their 90’s. Generally though, the average age of death was the early 20’s after two or three fights.

From Mugla we went North again to Aydin and then west to Selcuk and the ancient city of Ephesus. The drive was glorious – rugged mountains, amazing rock formations and acres upon acres of forest. We found a hotel run by a 38 year old, slightly psychopathic man who used to be a NATO Lieutenant in Bosnia. There was a big fire burning in the large reception room – we needed it as we had a frost overnight but our room never really warmed up – and Jimmy made us welcome with cups of tea and the fireside seats but then scared us a little with his tales about previous guests that he had fallen out with! One guest had written a comment about the hotel on a website and Jimmy told us three times how he had tracked him down and threatened to remove his testicles. We nervously stayed in the hotel two nights but neither of us slept very well!

Ephesus knocks the spots off any Roman ruins we have seen thus far. Much more complete than the more famous Delphi – the archaeologists have done an amazing (that word again) job of restoration. The Library is photographed in all its publicity but the terraced houses they are piecing together is for me the most wondrous as you can really see the splendid luxury, even by todays standard, that the important families of the city lived. Even the paintings that covered the plaster on the walls are intact. 2000 years ago everyone had running hot water and flushing toilets while the richest had luxury bathrooms, opulent banqueting halls, shaded gardens and fountains. The engineering is fantastic – I was fascinated by their pipe-work and building techniques. The walls of their houses are a mixture of stonework and bricks and mortar – built so well that they are still standing and the pipes are still visible under the marble Roman roads. Within walking distance (on side-walks so that carriages had free passage) were the market, shops, library, theatre and stadium. The Romans made sure all their subjects had a share of the wealth and they were, as we know but sometimes forget, probably more civilised than we are now. The exception perhaps is the fight to the death of the gladiators and wild animals but you could argue that we have equally but hidden barbaric practices.

From Aydin we drove East along the Menderes valley. A vast fertile plain where citrus, wheat, olives and vines grow. We were visiting Pamukkale, Hierapolis and Aphrodesias. Pamukkale (Snowcastle) is a place with unique geological phenomena. From a distance it looks like a large white scar on the mountain. Close up it looks like a glacier. But actually it is calcium oxide that is carried by the hot water trickling down the mountain which, once cooled, deposits the white sediment as travertine onto the rocks. We walked up bare footed, paddling through the warm, silky soft water to the Roman baths above. Later, as the sun set we walked down again – this time with freezing feet as the temperature dropped over 10C. In the moonlight it really felt and looked like we were on snow. We were glad to get warmed up by a good Turkish meal in our hotel at the foot of the mountain.

Back on Deep Blue in our own bed, back to morning swims and warm midday sun we are going to spend the next week walking and eating very cheaply. The pound has dropped dramatically against the Euro while we have been away so suddenly we feel somewhat poorer!