Turkey Trucking

We're sitting in a pensione in Selcuk, pronounced "sellchook" in Turkey, so its a finger lickin good time we're having here.  Actually, that's not far from the truth.  This pensione probably has the best food in town, home made by the owner and his family of wife, cousin, cousin's wife, another aunt, etc.  Very family friendly orientated and rates 100% customer satisfaction in the Lonely Planet hostels for Celcuk.  But first, some pictures of arriving in Kusadasi.

Those photos jump from our arrival at Kusadasi port (mad touristy place) where we got a bus to this town - to one of the early nights out we've had here in Selcuk.   The community enjoy long evenings of socializing in the streets and cafe's.  In terms of gender it's seriously one sided though, as you only see women as tourists getting around the town.  Rarely do you see Turkish women out at the coffee houses or playing backgammon with the good ole' boys.  It's still 'male bastion country', although the men I have met are very charming.  Perhaps it's got to do with selling their stuff, which is a cynical view, possibly accurate, but essentially we're finding the Turks as the most hospitable and friendly race we've encountered.  Here is a photo of the owner of the Pensione Tuncay:  Junate, his wife Angelique and their son Azel. the little girl is a cousin. This family is just the BEST.  Hard working, helpful, cheerful, great company, can't do enough to make our visit here as hassle free as possible.  We recommend them and the Tuncay Pensione, if anyone chooses to come to Turkey.    We're thinking of coming back some time and bringing along some mates for a couple of months.  Anyone interested?

More pictures of the town and market to show you .... but first, you should know that this MODERN town evolved in only the last 100 years, as it is right adjacent to the Basilica of St. John, who apparently wrote the Gospels according to himself and Revelation for the Bible. He's interred under the stones in the basilica behind this street.  Selcuk occupies what must have been the outskirts of  an ancient city called Ephesus, and the surrounding countryside was (more than likely) covered with houses and streets of this city which,  at its peak, had 250,000 people living here. That's five times the size of Coffs Harbour.   Apparently whenever any of the locals try to modernise their places and dig down to make new foundations, they almost invariably dig into ancient houses. That means that they may as well stop digging and close the hole over because they are not allowed to damage any of the archaeological sites.  So that means most of the area.

On the first day, we photographed the fort that is on the hill directly above the town....the locals thought it was 15th century, but it is actually 5th century AD, although heavily rebuilt in the 20th century.  The locals, would you believe, don't really take much interest in the history all around them.. they just get on with the day to day.

In the middle of the town of Selcuk, there is a row of aquaducts, left from the Roman occupation.  They are home to a population of storks that make nests in them every year.  The local kids clap their hands to talk to them and the storks call back, as their calls sound like hands clapping too.  

Some more pictures....of the pensione from the outside,....
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And the inside, where we sit and have cool drinks, talk with Jenate and his nephew Muslum, who is a real card, both with incredible abilities with language....they talk Aussie slang, can talk most languages, with accents.  They both had educations until the age of 11, and worked in a carpet shop, then graduated to this business.  Smart guys, running a business that is going gang busters.. But with such a large and complex family

A view of the market place, which supplies a mind boggling array of food, homewares and clothing.  It takes up a large part of the town area and is on every Saturday.  The town itself is full of cafe's and restaurants, carpet and gift ware shops, and yep, we did do some shopping, to avoid a rushed effort in Istanbul on our way out.   Met some seriously nice Kurds during our negotiations and made friends with them over the week.

We did some excursions around the place, one of them to an old village called Sirinse, built by some Greek expatriats who wanted to get away from marlarial vapours that were killing off swathes of the population down in the Ephesus area. It was swampy, years ago.  Don't ask me why just the Greeks did, I don't know.  It's a ragged and stony place, lately becoming a favourite with tourists.  So we went, didn't we.

 On the left is an American girl called Kate, who has been teaching in a university in south eastern Turkey for two years.  She's fluent in Turkish, Greek, Kurdish and learned latin when she was around eleven years old..(She's a Fullbright scholar).  The man in the middle of the picture is a cousin of Marcos, the Kurdish shop keeper we met, (and he has a million of em.)  This one is learning ancient Greek literature and language....and being at the beck and call of his older businessman cousin, happily drove us up to the village.  Lovely guy, but I can't remember his name.!!!!  Geeeezzz

   

OKAY.....I TOLD YOU THAT I WAS GOING TO GET INTO MORE ANTIQUES, but I think I might put them all onto another report, this one all about Ephesus, and the surrounding relics.  There are just so many sights, sites and images and you might start to glaze over.  


Back soon.