Pamukkale: Cotton Candy Dreams
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
35
85
Trip End
May 25, 2007
Pamukkale,
Turkey
Monday, January 1, 2007
Our hotel in Pamukkale was the exact opposite of the one in Selcuk. The owners were too delightful, the place spotless with central heating and piping hot water. The owners were one of those couples you hope to be like after 12 years of marriage, gazing at each other lovingly, teasing each other and talking admiringly about the other all the time. It was very sweet. Plus, the wife was a fabulous cook. In the winter when it is too cold to go outside, the family's living room was the common room and dining room for the hotel. There are few tourists, so this works fine. We ended up interacting a lot with the family, talking about religion and politics, Turkey in the EU, Iraq war and all the other topics everyone is talking about in Turkey these days.
They had Al Jazeera English here as well so we watched the aftermath of Saddam's execution on there. Of course it was also all over the Turkish channels. People immediately picked up on the fact that Saddam was executed on day the Sunni celebrate Haj, basically spoiling their holiday and pissing them off. I don't know if the US didn't notice or didn't care but most of the Muslims on this side of the world assume it was their idea. People are very open to talk about the war when they learn that we are not fans of Bush either. There are enough terrible governments in the world (every country has had a few) that people know not to judge someone by their current government. We can say that across the board the world dislikes Bush. Everyone assumes that Bush attacked Iraq to get their oil. The news stations show all the human suffering going on there and you really see how this war has made our government so unpopular.
The day after we arrived was the first day of the feast of Haj for the Sunnies, when they celebrate God's mercy on Abraham when the angel intervened before he had to sacrifice his son (either Ishmael or Isaac, depending on if you are reading the Muslim or Judeo-Christian version). The Shiites start celebrating a day later. To celebrate, all Muslims sacrifice a lamb with half of the meat being given to the poor. The hotel owners shared a plate of meat with us and it was very tasty.
The calcium travertines were quite spectacular. They are hard to describe, but it looks like the mountains have puffs of snow on them.Since it was declared a UNESCO site they have cleaned up the place and are much more strict on where you can or cannot walk. We hiked up the designated trail. It was pretty cold out so once the hot springs settled in the pond for a while they became quite chilly. I liked to walk in the fresher, warmer water. Once we got to the top there was another ancient Roman city. Not as spectacular as Ephesus but they had a very interesting cemetery, one of the best preserved Roman grave yards. They have some pricey hot springs to swim in but there was no one swimming (it may have had something to do with the 40 degree air temperature). The temperature of the water was about 96 degrees, not enough to counteract the cold. Plus, Julius justifiably thought that the walls of the pool were too dirty. Not much is done in the winter since no one wants to get in.
New Years Eve in this town didn't have a lot of options and we didn't want to go to any discos, so we stayed home and watched the countdown shows with the hotel owner. The big show on Turkish television is the same as the states, Pop Idol. In fact, Pop Idol is a huge phenomenon all over the world. We watched pop idol in Sweden, France, Croatia, Germany and other countries. I liked the Turkish one best for a few reasons, one being that they sang Turkish style music, in Turkish. The hotel owner said that they launched one a few years back that had them singing American songs and it never caught on. When they started this one with Turkish music it was a huge success. Many other Pop Idols shows we saw were singing American or British songs. It not only ignores their language, the singers also end up butchering the lyrics!
The other part we loved about Pop Idol Turkey was the "Simon-esque" judge for the show. It was a famous Turkish singer who decided to have a sex change operation when he was already a big star. Now he is a she and even more of a celebrity than before. She has gobs of make-up on and these crazy costumes and is very big. But everyone seems to value her approval since she is the meanest judge. She is certainly an example of the open-mindedness that surprised us in this country.
From Pamukkale we had a 10 hour night bus to Cappadocia in central Turkey. Julius likes night buses so he was looking forward to it more than me. I was pleased by the fact that they drove safe and slowly. We watched the thermometer recording the outside temperature keep sliding down closer to freezing. To counteract this they like to fire up the heater until the bus is about 90 degrees. Every two or three hours the bus would make a pit stop, all the lights would be flipped on and I would wake up. Not a restful night sleep but we managed.
See the rest of our Pamukkale Photos on its Smugmug Page!
