Why I love Turkey

Oh my god, I love Turkey! Not the gobble gobble kind either but the amazing shopping and rugs Turkey.
Today was another super early start for our excursion. We were going to visit the ancient city of Ephesus, a short bus ride from the port, uncovered during excavations 140 years ago and still being excavated today.
It was a Roman and Greek city built by a general of Alexander the Great’s for the Ephesian people. Apparently, Alexander had promised it to them during his travels through the region but died before he could make good on this oath. So his mate, a general under him, came back and built the city. But then, the people didn’t want to move to it, already living comfortably elsewhere. So the general stopped up all the drainage in their town and it flooded, forcing the inhabitants to move to his new city of Ephesus.
It is one of the archaeological wonders of the world and some of it is very well preserved. It is similar to Pompeii and the forum in Rome, given it was Roman architecture but the most amazing thing about Ephesus is its size. Only 13 per cent of the city has been uncovered in 140 years of excavations. The rest of it still lays buried beneath tonnes of earth and who knows what treasures they will find if they ever excavate the lot.
The site includes some Roman baths, toilets, a library, a theatre (that could seat 24,000 spectators) and many more temples as well as residential houses. Ephesus is where Antony and Cleopatra honeymooned: the boulevard they walked on is still preserved today.
And it’s accessible. Almost the entire site of Ephesus can be touched, walked on, climbed over and sat on, making it much more engaging than Pompeii and the forum.
Our guide, Emre, was very knowledgeable and a hoot to boot. We wandered the site for about an hour, taking in only about one kilometre of the vast city.
It was only 9am but it was getting hot. The heat we have experienced since being in Italy and Greece has been stifling at times.
Bypassing the guy selling photos on his camel for one euro, we boarded the bus to head back towards the port (it had been about a half hour drive) to visit the Ottoman Rug Gallery. This could have been one of those cheesy things the tour guides are known for, where they take you to certain stores in the hope of getting kickbacks from sales. And it was, but it was also very interesting.
Turkey is renowned for its rugs. For centuries, Turkish women have traditionally handmade the most elaborate, intricate and spectacular rugs. The difference between Turkish rugs and other rugs from around the world is that Turkish rugs are always double knotted, making them more long lasting and resilient to traffic.
As this was all being explained to us by the store manager, his minions unrolled dozens and dozens of rugs in various sizes, colours and patterns and some of them were very beautiful. There were rugs as small as a placemat while others would fill a large lounge room. There were “magic carpets” that changed colour as you spun them around as the lay of the weave hit the light (if you said the magic words abracadabra). He explained that while the smallest rugs could be created in as few as three weeks, some of the larger ones could take up to several years to complete and would be worked on by several women. On the other hand, a very intricate and rare rug he showed us, about the size of a pillow case took four years by one woman who worked on it for just two hours a day. But her work was much sought after and it was in silk.
They had rugs made of cotton on cotton, wool on cotton, silk on cotton and silk on silk, with the latter obviously fetching a higher price. These were Turkey’s answer to the Renaissance arts.
The tradition of rug making was slowly disappearing in Turkey and this store was part of a co-operative working with local villages to on-sell the rugs produced by the women on a world market.
And as Kylie said I would, I bought one.
After drinking our apple tea and examining all the rugs before us, almost everyone in our group left the moment the time came for the minions to start the hard sell. Sam and I left our move a fraction late and got spotted eyeing one rug too closely.
“You like?” one of the minions asked.
“Yes, they are all beautiful,” I said.
“I get you a price.”
Curious more than anything to know how much these artworks went for, we waited to find out.
The larger rug I had my eye on was about 500 euro. It was about a fifth larger than a doormat.
No way. But there was another and much smaller rug I had liked from the moment it was rolled out. It was tiny in comparison to what we had seen, about the size of placemat but a big longer. It was mostly red in colour that kind of took on a pinky hue in a certain light.
“How much for this one?” I asked.
A few calculations and our “special Contiki discount” because “you are young and not rich”.
“120 euro.”
Sam and I visibly gulped and made to walk away. Apparently it was usually 300 euro but for us it was a very special price.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t afford that. I am a poor student.” Hehe.
“You like it, yes?”
“Yes, I like it but I can’t pay that much.”
“How much you pay then?”
“I can’t, I can’t.”
“How about, just for you then, let’s say 100 euro we have a deal?”
“I’m sorry, no that’s too much money. I love it but I can’t pay that much.”
“You tell me then how much you pay?”
At this point Sam chipped in with “60 euro”.
Now it was the salesman’s turn to be shocked and to tell the truth so was I. I probably would never have gone that low. The salesman swallowed, looked a tad cranky.
“Let me ask the boss, I can’t decide on such a low price.”
He turned to the owner and spluttered something in Turkish with much hand gesturing. I’m sure we were being called all sorts of horrid names.
“70, I can do it for 70.”
Done.
So we bought a rug and it was promptly rolled up, wrapped up and with its care instructions tucked into the bag we were out of there before we bought anything else. I thought we got a good deal.
Our rug took four weeks to make, is handmade and will outlast us. “Turkish rugs will last 3, 4, 500 years even in high traffic areas,” they tell us. We will use it as a wall hanging because it’s so small.
Leaving the rug store, we found the rest of the group ready to hit the Turkish baths. Having declined the offer of being pummelled by a hairy Turkish man, Sam and I decided to continue shopping in the bazaar instead.
Did I mention I love Turkey?
I loved every shop, every little thing they sold there - except Turkish delight which you could get five boxes of for 10 euro.
The hukas I really liked the look of. They are the big water pipes that people smoke flavoured tobacco out of. Now Sam and I had no interest in using them to smoke but they were beautifully crafted and very Turkish.
We particularly liked the look of the copper ones, engraved and hand painted with intricate patterns around the base. They came in all sizes but the one we liked was about 60cm tall and weighed much less than what we thought to look at, coming in at just under 900 grams.
I know this, because we bought one and posted it home.
But before I get to that, we shopped around for the huka. The first shop we tried the guy offered it to us for 60 euro and it was nice but instinct told us we might get a better price.
So we wandered in and out of a dozen shops selling the same things. The delicate tea sets were so beautiful and I desperately wanted one but had no idea how I would get it home.
Finally, in a shop that looked like all the others, selling the same things, we found a huka that seemed, actually exactly the same but the guy had cornered us this time.
“How much?”
“120 euro,” he said.
“Seriously? What’s your best price?”
“100 euro.”
Well, we can get the same one around the corner for 50 euro,” we said.
“50 euro?”
“Yep, 50. If we can pay that, we will got back to the other guy.”
“You are honest, so I respect that. I will sell it to you for 50 euro.”
Another deal done.
God I love Turkey.
Now we had this whopping huka and a Turkish rug. This was going to make my pack a lot heavier.
As we left the store, I saw a sign for the post office and we decided that if it was reasonable we would post back the huka, as the guy had put it in a box for us.
When the guy at the post office deigned to notice us, he was actually quite helpful. Like I said, the huka weighed about 900 grams, which with the box and newspaper he stuffed into it took it up to about a kilo. To send it back to Australia would cost us 20 euro, but to not have to carry it around for the next five weeks, there was no questioning the value.
While stuffing our box, the post office guy asked how much we had paid for it. When we told him 50, he seemed quite impressed. I asked him if we had got a good price or been ripped off and he said, “no that good.”
Hopefully, it gets there. Kate I sent it to you by the way.
The job done, we power walked back to the ship, having left ourselves about five minutes to get back on board.
We made it with plenty of time, as many others were late, but it was close.
Stowing our bags away in our cabin, it was time for lunch on board. Pretty much more of the same as the day before.
Today, however, after lunch I had booked in for some desperately needed attention at the beauty salon.
My hair had become unmanageable and dry and my feet … oh yeah they were bad. Weeks of walking around for between four and nine hours a day had left the heels hard and cracked, the soles dry and my nails were, well, a Greek tragedy.
I had only booked in for a shampoo and cut, along with the pedicure but as the woman put my feet into the spa bath to soak, she talked me into a manicure as well while we were waiting.
Loving the attention after weeks on the go, in and out of hotels, train stations, bus stations and airports, it was so nice to actually relax for a few hours of luxury.
My finger nails weren’t nearly as tragic as my toe nails and this was a pretty no fuss affair though the hand and arm massage were lovely.
Then we got to the feet.
With the pumice stone she set to work and the expression on her face said it all.
“I know, I’m sorry. They are awful,” I said.
She smiled wryly and said “yes, but I have seen worse … not much worse.”
Fantastic, I had hobbit feet.
I’m sure this pedicure took much longer than the woman had anticipated but she won in the end. Humiliated as I was it wasn’t difficult to talk me into buying some pedi scrub and foot lotion.
After she was done with my feet and I resembled something human again, she moved onto my hair.
It needed a good trim and I wanted a fringe again.
She took to me with scissors and the result … probably not what I would have done but it’s grown on me. I don’t think I have had a fringe this short since primary school.
She also managed to talk me into buying some conditioner, which since I actually needed some I was happy to do.
Pretty and pampered, by the time we were finished it was ready to disembark at Patmos, the third stop on our island hopping cruise.
Patmos was a disappointment. We had opted to go on the scenic island tour excursion which included a stop at St John’s grotto, the place where John had apparently written the Book of Revelations.
Not being religious I was still interested to see this holy site, which is said to be second only to Jeruselum. It attracts thousands and thousands of pilgrims every year.
The scenic island tour was a bus trip. It was very hot and the tour guide had a very monotonous voice that encouraged one to sleep rather than ask questions.
Patmos is a small island that has a huge water shortage. They ship in water from Crete and the island has no hospital. Pregnant women due to give birth have to leave for the mainland or Crete at least a month before.
Compared to Mykonos, it had little charm and compared to some of the other places we had seen like Cyprus, it had little beauty. It was quite a barren place that people apparently spent millions of euros on to live and vacation to during summer.
Personally I didn’t see it.
Then came St John’s grotto. So this was a cave basically that John was exiled to from Turkey. He was very old at the time and it was here he allegedly heard God speak to him and he wrote the Book of Revelations.
Now it has been proven that a dude by the name of John did live here for some time and did write the book.
But, you go in this cave and there are some niches in the wall that have been gilded in gold. This one was where he “used to put his hand to help him stand” up and this one “he used to rest his head and sleep ”. And people are worshipping these holes in the walls. It was bizarre. There is also no proof this is what they were used for at all. There is also a section in the rock ceiling where three lines meet in the overhang. This is apparently where John heard the voice of the Lord and so powerful it was that it cracked the rock into three - the Holy Trinity.
Now, that to me is downright bogus and I hate when the church profit off bogus. It’s not free to visit the cave and monastery constructed above it in the 15th century. Thousands of people from around the world travel here to pray and honour their beliefs at this site and there isn’t a skeric of evidence to support it. Grrr.
So anyway, it was a tiny cave that you walked around in a anti-clockwise direction to look at some gold gilded holes in the wall.
It was very underwhelming.
All up, this island excursion had cost us 54 euro each and it was the least value for money of all the Contiki optionals so far.
On the way back to the port, the tour guide spent 10 minutes selling us on why we should visit a little café situated on the water and what it sold and where we could sit there. It was blatant sales and was not well received.
So Patmos disappointed me. The only good thing about it was we found an internet café there and were able to print out our tickets for our flights to Venice from Athens and we booked our accommodation in Venice.
Back on the ship, it was time for dinner, our first on board. Eight of us went to the restaurant where we had a selection of about four different entrees, soups and salads, mains, side dishes and desserts.
The food was filling and tasty and before long it was time to get ready for our Contiki cocktail party.
This, for those avid followers of ours, was where we thought Sam would need a suit for but it seems some things changed since Contiki last updated its itineraries.
The ship used to host a Captain’s cocktail party which required a jacket and tie for men and cocktail dresses for women. This had since stopped so now Contiki held its own cocktail party for half an hour in one of the lounges on board. All drinks and cocktails during this whole half hour were “free” - meaning we had paid for it in the cost of our tour.
But anyway, Sam decided to pull out the suit because it would probably be his only chance to wear it and we had been telling everyone about his brown linen suit. I had also still never seen it on him.
I don’t know if dashing would be the right word to describe it but certainly conspicuous.
We indulged in our free drinks and stuck around for happy hour in the lounge when all drinks were half price.
We ended up buying so many in that hour we couldn’t finish them and it was about midnight that I was ready for bed.
Alysia (August 28)