A Weekend in Marmaris, a Week in Olympos

Ruins, beaches and sleeping in treehouses - Olympos is a great place to take a break.

After an exceptional time in Pamukkale, we were all set to get a quick glimpse of what Lonely Planet (LP) means when it says "over-developed package tourist hellhole" - which apparently describes an unfortunate majority of the towns along Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

We had heard nothing good about Marmaris, however there were two things that helped us make the decision to go there. Marmaris is the closest town to the Hisarnou Peninsula, and LP describes a fantastic day that can be had, along deserted coastlines, scooting around the 120kms or so of coastline (I was very eager to put my newly acquired motorcycle licence to practical use!).

The other reason was that there was the first Wallabies Tri-nations match being played that Saturday. Being in a big enough touristy town would help ensure that at least one pub there had access to Sky Sports so we could watch the big game.

We arrived late morning, quickly checked into our expensive, shoebox of a room (easily the smallest we've had so far), and searched out a pub showing the rugby. A couple of false leads and much walking of the marina led us to a restaurant/pub that was more than willing to show the game (in exchange for our patronage)!

Australia in the lead!

Full time! A great game, Wallabies 16, Springboks 9.

It was great to see a Wallabies victory after a long drought of not watching any rugby at all since we had left!

Afterwards, we cruised around the strip and the marina in Marmaris - there wasn't a lot to look at, however I'm happy to report that it was no where near as bad as Sharm el Sheikh and Naama Bay, in Egypt!

Looking back on to Marmaris...

We found ourselves a scooter that night and the next day headed out to the Hisaronou Peninsula. The coastline was absolutely beautiful, and it was great to get a glimpse of what the coastline of Turkey used to look like, before all of the over-development!

Scootin' around gorgeous coastline - this is what travelling is about!

We stopped in the village of Bayir for morning tea and sat for about half an hour as the owner of a honey shop chatted to us about his love of sailing on the Med - we were eagerly looking forward to our week on the Med as well!

The village of Bayir.

A lot of honey!

One of the features of the village are the amazingly old trees - known as Plane or Selvi trees. The one in the center of town is reputed to be more than 2000 years old - by walking around the tree it is meant to give you a long and happy life. We both took a turn!

The Sacred Tree - bringing long life and good luck if you walk around it

We moved on to one of the coastside villages for a spot of lunch and a bit of a swim. It was fantastic to escape the crowds for a while and just relax in the clear blue waters of the Med.

From there, we kept going around the peninsula, taking in the landscape and the view. We spied a little bay where there were a lot of locals swimming so we stopped and dove right in - we didn't notice the sign that said "5 lira per person" - oops! We sheepishly handed over the cash to the local patriarch, before heading on our way.

The beautiful little bay where we had a dip!

We ended the day, driving on fumes as we headed back to Marmaris - we definitely got the full value out of our trusty scooter and had a brilliant day!

Steph putting on yet more sunscreen - vital equipment for scooting!

We stopped for dinner at a "proper" Chinese restaurant (they even hired genuine Chinese people to usher people in the door) and then packed our bags and caught the bus overnight to Antalya (about 14 hours), where we then caught a minibus (another 1.5 hours) to Olympos, our next destination.

Olympos is a backpacker's haven, it's claim to fame being the treehouse camps that make up the majority of accommodation, the ancient roman ruins and beach as well as its proximity to Chimaera, a mountain from which flammable gases continually seep that ignite with the open air. It's all pretty cool.

We arrived early in the morning, a little groggy after sleeping lightly on the overnight bus to Antalya. We had brekkie and then retired to our air-conditioned room for a bit of a clean up and to settle in. We had a bit of nap and then got up, had some lunch and headed to the beach.

The beach at Olympos...


...and some of the ruins on the hillside.

The interesting thing about the beach is that it is necessary to walk through the ruins of Olympos in order to get there from the village. As such, every day you're required to pay the entrance fee to the Olympos ruins - absolute genius on the part of the Turkish foundation looking after the place!

We spent the afternoon on the beach - a pebble beach, however the water was amazingly cool, clear and refreshing; the perfect antidote to the amazingly hot weather we had in Olympos!

Great to get in the water to escape the heat of the day!

That night we met up with a couple from the UK that we would end up spending quite a bit of time with both here as well as in Goreme, Tamsie and Minesh. They were great fun and good company to help while away our relaxing time in Olympos.

(L to R) Afsin, Steph, me, Minesh and Tamsie - our company at camp

Our second day at Olympos, we booked in for a sea kayaking trip, just around the shoreline of the bay. It was a great way to see some more of the amazing coastline, as well as get out and swim amongst some of the small caves in the cliff faces. Fantastic to get away from the crowds on the beaches as well!

Me and the sea kayaks - dragging them down the stream to the beach was well worth the peace of the day that we had, paddling up the coastline.

We ended up spending 4 days in Olympos, and the theme was roughly the same - get up late, have brekkie, wander to the beach. Have a swim, wander back for lunch, then either spend the afternoon in a hammock, reading a book or head out to the beach again. Bliss!

On our last night we visited Chimaera - the mountain of the eternal flame! The original legends said that there was a creature - called a chimaera - living under the mountain and the flames were a result of the creature breathing while it slept.

We caught a minibus after dinner and hiked up the hill in the dark - this took about 30 minutes or so. By doing the hike at night, we got to see the flames to full effect. It was still amazingly hot, though, and we were all drenched in sweat by the time we reached the top.

Unfortunately we didn't have any marshmallows to roast on the flames, so we had to settle for just watching the little fires as the burned at random spots all over the hill. A couple of Germans near us succeeded in blowing out one of the smaller flames, and spent the next few minutes frantically trying to re-light the flames with sticks and leaves. Very funny to watch.

Me, Steph, Minesh and Tamsie - trying to cool off next to naked flames is not the best idea in the world!

The only other thing that punctuated our stay in Olympos is the stomach bug that flew around the entire camp and several people, including myself, spent 24-48 hours vomiting and "going at both ends" which was fantastic. Amazingly, the only person that seemed not to be affected was Steph - the super bug she suffered in Jordan must have hardened her system!

After our four days were up, we said farewell to Olympos and were ready to embark on our trip to Cappodocia. We had arranged to catch up with Minesh and Tamsie in the town of Goreme as they were also heading there for their last stop in Turkey before returning to the UK.

Our trip started with the the overnight bus to Ankara to get our Indian visas drawn up in our passports. Luckily, this time our applications were accepted without incident, which was fantastic as our timing was getting a little short - the Indian embassy only accepts applications between 10:00 and 11:00am, Mon-Fri and, as it was Friday, it was literally our last chance.

We then eagerly got on the next bus to Goreme that afternoon, only about 4-5 hours to arrive in the evening and the next stage of our Turkish travels!

Sweating it out in Selçuk & getting healed in the magical waters of Pamukkale

A regular sight in Ephesus

Selçuk

After some exhausting and very hot ruins in Troy (and a passing case of traveler's diarrhea exacerbated by the heat), we grabbed some pide and some very tasty pudding and hopped on the bus to Selçuk. We couldn't get a direct bus, so we took the bus to the nearest town and hopped a minibus the rest of the way. Eight hours later, we were very happy to finally get there!

A little refreshment from the bus station...
While it looked like a tasty milkshake, Kyle was a bit surprised when it was a bitter salty yogurt. Not the biggest fan.

One of the guys from the ANZ Guesthouse, where we were staying, walked down to the bus station to meet us and guide us up through the twisted streets to the hostel. He took us up to our fantastic room and when we were giving him our passport details to check-in, he said that a couple guys downstairs knew us. It turns out that we'd caught back up to Saul & Michael, the two guys from NY that we'd met on the Bosphorus cruise in Istanbul. Good to see familiar faces.

After all the traveling, we were starving and ready for some dinner. Harry from the guesthouse recommended a good pide (Turkish Pizza) restaurant just a couple blocks away. And he was right. It was great and so cheap. Tasty!

Since we had a couple days here, we took our time seeing the sights. Besides, it was hotter than the sun outside so we really couldn't move too fast. It wasn't recommended that we go to any outdoor sights from 11am-5pm so we were a bit limited...

We hit the Ephesus Museum during the midday heat to check out some of the amazing artifacts that were found at (and removed from) Ephesus (Efes). They had some interesting ones.

Ephesian Artemis (Great Mother Goddess) - represented holding gourd-like eggs, thought by some to be testicles.

Zeus & Marcus Aurelius




Priapos, the god of fertility, is also thought to cure impotency, bring good luck & ward off the evil-eye. (As he is often pictured with an exaggerated, continuously erect penis, I now understand where the term priapism came from! Those are fun patients. Doesn't matter how many times some men are told not to overdose on Viagra and the like, a few will always give it a go...)


A very descriptive, disturbing way in which they used to removed kidney stones... Basically hold onto the urethra tightly with a clamp and go poking around until you find something. Ouch!


A couple nice carvings. Replicas, but fantastic nonetheless.

Also, they had a really cool gladiator section, giving details about gladiator training and lifestyles (very short lifespans, as you can imagine) and details a few spectacular ways in which gladiators died. They didn't go quietly!

A gladiator skeleton found and CSI-esque display on the cause of death

St. John's Basilica

After, we toughed out the heat to walk up to St. John's Basilica (6th century CE), where the actual tomb of St. John (as in St. John the Apostle, or "according to the Gospel of John"...) is said to be. Restoration work is still just in the early stages, so there wasn't a huge amount to see yet, but it was underway.

The grand entrance

The actual tomb of St. John

Some of the ruins

Looking up at the fort that looked remarkably intact, or restored, but we weren't allowed anywhere near

Enjoying the view out over the green countryside, this is the mosque next door.

But the to-scale model of the original basilica was impressive. :) My brother Tim, the architect, would agree that they must have been a real b*tch to make!

Are you flashing back to all-nighters at Roger Williams, Tim??

Since we were on a roll, we set off to find the old aqueduct that the city was famous for. I can say for sure that we were a bit underwhelmed. There were only a couple little bits of it left, and one of those had some council flats growing out the top of it. (?) Maybe we could have skipped that...

(Not the part with the council flats... it wasn't good enough to take a photo of.)

After we signed up for the big "Aussie" BBQ at the hostel. (The part of the Turkish family owns the hostel used to live in Oz, so they try to make it all Aussie. It's cute really.

Loving the lamb chops, given a Turkish edge with the Cigara Boregi pastries


Sunset from the rooftop restaurant

Anyways, they had a great barbie with lamb chops and all, a favorite meal in Turkey for Kyle. I don't know how long it's been since we last had good lamb! At dinner, we chatted with a remarkably un-Parisian Parisian couple (that's a good thing), Julien & Morgane. They were very down to earth and great fun to chat with over a couple beers.

The baby birds that we saw every time we walked up or down the stairs

Per Julien & Morgane's advice, we were going to wait until very late in the afternoon to see Ephesus and avoid the crowds and the heat. So in the meantime, we hit the beach!

I know that this was a very small sample set, but I would be willing to say that the Southern Aegean beaches don't have anything on the beaches in Oz. The water was quite chilly and there was a bit of chop from the wind, making the water quite cloudy. It was one of those days where you get out of the water and get coated with sand like a powdered doughnut. Not the best, but still a day at the beach.

While we were there, we managed to make a friend, a Turkish guy called Serefe originally from the Selçuk area who had been living abroad for 4 years in Holland. We had a nice chat with him and then caught a ride with him back into town for some lunch.

At a much cooler 5:30pm, we hopped in a cab to Ephesus.

Efes

A highlight of Ephesus... the Celsus Library

Ephesus (AKA Efes) was once the ancient city of Anatolia. Completed around 550 BC, the city was once one of the most important ports in the world. Now, it lies 6km from the sea (the harbor gradually filled up with silt). While the site itself it very big, it is estimated that only around 15% has been excavated so far. But the ruins present give you a real feel for the how the city really was in it heyday.

We started our self-guided tour down a long, colonnaded street, starting with an odeon (small outdoor theatre) and some miscellaneous ruins along the way.

A small odeon holding about 1500 people (for small plays) was tiny compared to the mammoth theatre that we saw later on.


One of the impressive archways that used to be part of a temple (can't remember which one)

The colonnaded street really gave you the feeling of people walking around here 2000 years ago. Really amazing.


Looking back up the long, main street

The Temple of Hadrian was truly spectacular. A real highlight for me!

The public toilet - kind of weird to think of everyone just hanging out having a chat here while on the john... Apparently, the rich had their servants warm up the stone seat so they wouldn't have a cold bum. How nice.

Built in 117 CE, the Roman Celsus Library is the star of the show in Ephesus. Two stories high, it once held over 12,000 scrolls inside and was said to be the third richest ancient library after Alexandra and Pergamum.

The fully-restored facade of the library

The facade is adorned with 4 beautiful (replica) statues representing the virtues of Celsus--wisdom (Sophia), knowledge (Episteme) intelligence (Ennoia) and valor (Arete). (The original statues now live in the Ephesus Museum in Vienna.)

An archway next to the library that seemed to be the favorite spot for ancient graffiti artists

They liked their fully adorned stone caskets as well!

The ancient theatre seating approximate 44,000 is thought to have been the largest outdoor theatre from in the ancient world.

The huge theatre is still used for performances today.

Another famous street, Palace Street, was unfortunately closed off to visitors (probably for restoration reasons).

Some of the most impressive ruins on Palace Street, viewed from afar

A typical sight in the market by the exit

Later that evening, after grabbing some tasty kofte (Turkish meatballs, cooked on a skewer), we decided to head out for a few local beers with a local (kind of). We met up again with our friend from the beach for a beer as well as a couple guys we'd run into in the street that we'd shared a dorm with in Istanbul. (I'm thinking that Turkey's backpacker route is quite well-defined...) It was an entertaining night with our waiter-cum-magician (apparently, made "famous" by Lonely Planet"). A nice night out in town.

After seeing the sights of Selçuk, we hopped on a 3 hour bus the next day to Pamukkale.

Pamukkale

Pamukkale (Pam-ah-ka-le), literally meaning "cotton castle" in Turkish, is famous for the ruins of Hieropolis and its natural, travertine pools. The word on the street (and in the guidebooks) was that the public can no longer dip in the pools as they've been partially destroyed by the carelessness of visitors. While they have been removed from there now, in the early 20th century, many hotels were also built at the top, quickly destroying the natural phenomenon.

The travertine pools

The travertine pools were formed by a hot spring with a high content of chalk (calcium bicarbonate) in it. This ultimately left travertine and limestone pools which look like they're cascading down the side of the mountain. Stunning!

It is now UNESCO protected site. In an effort to restore some of its original beauty, there have been much stricter regulations put in place, such as no shoes from the end of the path. There are several pools that you can wade through at the bottom, but they are man-made and are starting to take on some of the precipitate to look somewhat authentic.

Wading through some of the man-made pools at the bottom

Then walking up the path to the natural pools

After walking up the scratchy, chalky path, we were very surprised to find people in the pools at the top. We later found out that the years of prohibiting visitors in the pools had salvaged them, so now you could go in again, as of today. Hmm, won't that just undo the repairs again? Oh well, if we're here on the day we can go in, we're going! Just in the most-environmentally responsible way, of course.

Wading in the pools for the first time in years

Wanting to stay for sunset, we headed over to see some of the ruins at Hierapolis first. After seeing a wealth of ruins over the past few months, I was a little underwhelmed by Hierapolis but they'd done some good work restoring the amphitheatre. Maybe the extreme heat and my wandering thoughts about the gorgeous pools didn't help...

Another part that we found particularly interested was the Plutonium. It was a sanctuary where a toxic CO2 gas rose up from a cave in the ground, released as a foul-smelling gas at the point where a hot-spring ran through. In those early times, when people who got too close to it died, the rumor was that Pluto, the god of the underworld, sent the "evil" gas to punish them.

But when the castrated priests of the town held their breath and crawled through the cave without dying, people believed it was a miracle. Priests were then thought to have extraordinary powers and divine protection. The "miracle" of trickery. Then the priests went on to rake in the cash for the temple under this ruse by charging people to come and ask questions to the "oracle of Pluto". Who came up with the idea that religious people were innately honest? What a load of crap!

Later this entrance was closed off as curious tourists ended up poisoning themselves. (Must've been before the days of Lonely Planet warning you away.) We looked pretty hard for the grate (haha), but never found it. Must have hidden it well this time!

Before we hit the travertine pools, we had a look at the Sacred Pool. The pool is fed by thermal springs and is largely unchanged from when it was used back in the Roman times by the townies for their healing powers. The pools have bits of ancient marble columns on the bottom with half-naked tourists climbing all over them.

While it is now enclosed by a lovely building and very touristy shops, they charged a whopping $20 USD for 2 hours of good healing. Hmm, maybe we could just go in the "just as healing" waters of the travertine pools for the mere $3 admission that we've already paid. (We're thinking that they may have to lower that admission cost soon now that the travertine pools are open again. I'll bet that they get a big decrease in takers.)

A local kid peeing in the Sacred Pools

These hot springs are also thought to have healing powers so, while we didn't have anything that needed rapid fixing, it couldn't hurt to have a little healing!

Just taking it all in

Either way it was amazing to see these pools... so strange and beautiful at the same time. Unfortunately, we have chalk marks all over our bathing suit similar to the ones from the Dead Sea. Not a place to bring your favorite cossie!

After soaking up the atmosphere at sunset, we headed back along the long, dark road back to our hotel. We had a fantastic dinner with them and hit the hay early for our early rise for the bus to Marmaris. Time to see the beautiful Mediterranean coast!

Lovely views of the area at sunset