Ephesus & Kusadasi
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2008
1
62
102
Trip End
Feb 26, 2009
Ephesus,
Turkish Aegean Coast,
Turkey
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Here's another ancient city, much like Pergamum with very interesting ruins. Originally this housed the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (3 of the 7 were in Turkey!). Some of the sights that are still here:
* A monument to Nike, Goddess of Victory - I got a picture with Adam wearing his Wallabies jersey here for good luck
* A theatre that could hold 25,000 people! It's still used today for classical music concerts, Gokhan went once and said it was incredible
* Library of Celsus - All that remains is a restored facade, and it's so incredibly elaborate for an ancient site. We took a group photo in front of this great backdrop. There was some graffiti of a menorah, surrounded by a barrier and a plaque explaining what it was
Lunch and carpet factory
For lunch we went to a place where you sit on cushions, and can get dressed up with Turkish clothes hanging along the walls. I put on a Sultan hat, and some of the girls tried on the Turkish robes. We had gozlemes for lunch, full of oil yet very tasty, perhaps because of the oil.
Next up was a carpet factory, where we were shown how hand-made carpets are made - it's such a process, often taking over a year for an individual to make! The guide was adamant that once (i.e. if) Turkey joins the European Union, prices will go up because workers will move to places with higher wages, thus carpets will cost more and it will be a good investment to buy one now. We were shown at least 50 carpets, some of them beautiful, with only 2 people buying in the end. The sales techniques were interesting, putting a lot of pressure on the older people in our group, but I was happy to stick along for the endless supply of apple tea. For the silk carpets, it's generally 100 stitches per 1 centimetre squared! I found one with even smaller stitchings, of Da Vinci's The Last Supper, that was priced at 25,000 US dollars! There was even a carpet on sale for $75,000!!
Kusadasi Beach
James, Chris and myself walked along Kusadasi Beach to our hotel, which was a beautiful walk. I can't imagine how nice it would be in summer when you could go swimming there, apparently it's packed with English tourists who have no beaches of their own. We stopped for beer at a restaurant on the beach, it reminded me a lot of Thailand, and had half a litre of Efes Premium each - a sweet and easy-to-drink beer that I'm really enjoying.
Back at the hotel, some of us played ping pong, and the competition tonight was much stronger. Grant the ex-Saffie beat me the first time we played, and in our second game (up to 11) it took me SIX MATCH POINTS (each with my advantage) to dispense with him! I ended up beating him in the next two games and maintaining a decent winning streak over all opponents. Tomorrow's going to be a highlight of this trip - a visit to the cascading cliffs / hot springs in Pamukkale.
