DATE: October 2007
LOCATION: Selcuk, Turkey
From Istanbul it was off to Izmir by air. I once saw a show on the ruins of Ephesus on the discovery channel, and have always wanted to go. We rented a car and drove south from Izmir. We decided to stay in the small town of Selcuk, not the huge tourist mega complex down the road. We both hate big resorts. We arrived amid a protest. The KGK/PKK terrorists had just abducted 8 Turkish soldiers, and the public outcry was fierce. Outcry against Americans was also fierce as we wouldn’t allow the Turks to attack KGK bases located in Iraq. Great timing for me…I was living my work, and asking questions to anybody who spoke English. Ellis was just plain nervous. As we sat at lunch the first day, we struck up a conversation with an older British couple on a 6 month tour of North Cyprus and Turkey. We had a nice chat with the seemingly goofy couple—she was in a track suit and he was wearing Bermuda shorts. However, when it came time for them to leave, the man adopted a different demeanor, took a sidelong glance at us as he walked away and said, “a word of advice…if you leave the tourist areas, I’d consider becoming British if I were you.” Sage advice, and something about the way he imparted it made me think perhaps there was more to this man than met the eye.
At our hotel we met a Turkish man and his American wife who had been living for years in Houston, and whose daughter attended Texas A&M. We had a nice talk in the garden courtyard, with Ellis reliving glory A&M days. I also had them translate the news for me as there were lots of pictures of marching soldiers and F-16s. Wouldn’t it just figure that I’d been working this problem set for 2 YEARS and when the mierde hits the fan, I’m in Turkey—in the middle of the action but clueless with the language barrier. Anyway, they asked what we were doing the following day, and we told them driving to see the ruins. They were astounded. “You’ve DRIVING in TURKEY?” he asked. Um, yeah…it’s really not hard. Oh yeah, and did I mention the man was TURKISH?!? Amazing--scared to drive in your own country. We felt brave.
Ruins. Two blocks from our hotel were the ruins of the church built over the tomb of John the Baptist. It was raining, and we had the whole complex to ourselves, apart from a friendly cat—whom we did NOT invite home to sleep with us. It was on the hill overlooking Selcuk, and the gravity of who had been here weighed heavy. Legend has it John brought Mary here and they both lived out their final years in Selcuk. We made an attempt to visit Mary’s house, a huge pilgrimage site. They no kidding wanted $20 to see this totally rebuilt one room building. I’ve been to several pilgrimage sites in my life and never paid a nickel, so we scoffed at the man and turned the car around.
We spent hours driving through the countryside to see ruins. We first stopped at Priene, built as the world’s first preplanned city in the 4th century BC. Then on to Miletus, the most important Greek city in the region. Finally to Didyma, a HUGE temple built in 494 B.C on the site where Zeus came down to make love to Leto, who then gave birth to Artemis and Apollo. It was one of the biggest structures ever built by the Greeks. Finally we hit Ephesus. It was amazing. This is the oldest stuff I’ve ever seen. The city was founded in the 11th century B.C, and while mostly ruins, you can still tell how great it used to be—from the Greek city dedicated to Artemis to the Roman capital of Asia Minor. The throngs of fanny pack wearing tourists from cruise ships docked at Kusadasi only slightly spoiled my enjoyment—that is how cool this place is! Of course, even though many of the ruins were Greek, we never once actually saw that written anywhere—it was always “Hellenic” or something else that alluded to Greekness, but didn’t actually come and say it. You’d think after thousands of years, people could get over things.
If ANY of these places were in the States they would have been roped off and protected with some elaborate structure built over everything and would have cost a fortune to enter. As it was, we paid $2-3 and tromped, traipsed, walked and sat all over the stuff. Greek and Roman carvings just laying in the dirt. We even dug up some half buried stones to find Greek inscriptions on the bottom side. It’s funny how old things make me giddy. Just thinking about the people who used to be there, the things they used to do, the legends and stories that we still know and tell. I wonder what will be left from our time on earth? We all want to leave a legacy of some sort, and these folks did it in spades. Art, letters, and public announcements all carved in stone where they’ve remained for thousands of years. I don’t think text messages and TV shows will be quite the same a thousand years from now. The ease of our lives may be erasing proof we existed. It’s sad, really. So, you can all expect Christmas cards carved in stone this year.
Picture of Ataturk. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, father of modern Turkey is a revered figure. His picture ubiquitous looks out at you from every shop, restaurant and house in Turkey (luckily he was a handsome, dapper guy). Ellis and I, wanting a truly Turkish souvenir and conversation starter in our home, looked to purchase our own glossy Ataturk picture to frame and hang. We especially enjoy the picture of him sipping tea, and the one where he’s in his tux, but any would do. We began our queries early in the trip. We’d point to the picture hanging in whatever establishment it was and ask where we could get one. Normally people didn’t speak English well enough to know what we wanted, and proceeded to beam that we’d noticed their picture. They’d say loudly “Mustafa Kemal” and use every positive word in their limited vocabulary to explain to us who he was. When we made it clear we knew full well who he was, and that we WANTED a picture, they were stumped. How could EVERYBODY have one, but nobody know where to get one? We seriously asked 15 people, all with their own picture. We remain Kemal-less.
Our trip home was uneventful, and unpacked our bags only to pack them up again a week later for a trip to Krakow and Warsaw to visit our friend Artur. I plan to write about that too, but we’ll see. My travelogue track record isn’t stellar of late, and we’re leaving in 2 hours for the airport AGAIN to go to Bordeaux, so we’ll see.
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