Dan in Turkey

This blog begins with a disclaimer. It has been said that “what happens in the hamam, stays in the hamam.” I, however, am going to break that tradition later in this blog, so consider yourself forewarned.

I’ve spent the last four days on a fun excursion to the city of Selcuk, near the ruins of ancient Ephesus. You can see some photos here. This has been my first excursion since my Switzerland jaunt, and it’s been fun to be out of ever colder, ever smoggier Ankara for a few days. I boldly began the trip by courageously hopping my first dolmush in Ankara. The dolmush is a minibus system that, for mere kurush (pennies), takes you to various locations in the city. I hopped one to the Armada, a large shopping mall beside the Varan bus terminal where I was to catch the bus from Ankara to Izmir (ancient Smyrna) on Wednesday morning. Apart from the minibus wanting to fall apart at every bump in the road, all good. Got there with plenty of time. The ride to Izmir on Varan was very comfortable. There was plenty of room, as the bus was only half full. The seats were very spacious and easy, there was a bathroom on board, and a steward who served tea and coffee the whole way. It was like being on a comfortable airplane, only without having to wear a seatbelt.

The trouble arose (and the first major challenge of the trip) when I arrived in Izmir around 6PM in the wrong place. The Varan bus line did not take me to the “Otogar,” Izmir’s central bus terminal. Instead I had to try to grab a taxi to go the extra ten kilometers or so, but there was not a taxi in sight, and I was told the last bus to Selcuk left at 7PM. Finally, one of the Varan employees hastily sped me through the back streets of Izmir (not pretty, believe me, not pretty at all) and we made it in time. I offered him more money than I’d have paid a taxi, and he almost refused it. Almost. Anyway, I was at the Otogar, but again totally lost. No one seemed to know exactly from where the service to Selcuk departed. After some panicky running around though, I finally found the minibus and dashed in at the very last second—actually, it was the last second in my time frame, the bus itself didn’t take off for about another half an hour. Meanwhile, one of the bus driver’s friends who had some English talked me into looking at his brother’s pension when I got to Selcuk. Since I did not have a reservation anywhere else, I agreed.

After an hour in the darkness along the highway between the towns, the bus driver dropped me off at the head of a rather creepy looking alleyway filled with some shady looking characters. Fortunately for me all of these characters were younger than ten years old, so I managed to make it to the Hotel Nazar alive, deprived merely of a few kurush put into small, begging hands. The owners of those hands each made a bee line for the nearest candy store, needless to say.

At the hotel more adventure ensued. Unlike the English speaking brother that had been promised me, the only person in charge was the “anne,” the elderly mother, who had no English. Luckily I had enough broken Turkish to negotiate a fair room rate, settle in (the hotel was actually quite nice, clean and had excellent views of the ruins and the castle), clean up a bit, and head back out to find some food. I walked the streets of Selcuk and felt like I was truly staying in a Turkish town at last; not the westernized cities of Istanbul and Ankara, but something out of an Orhan Pamuk novel (my class is currently reading his “Snow” set in the eastern Turkish city of Kars). Men huddled for warmth inside smoke filled tea shops playing cards or backgammon and smoking argyle (water pipe) or cigarettes. The streets were fairly empty, and I did not notice any restaurants I felt brave enough to try, so I bought some crackers and water at the local corner store and headed back to my room to settle in. Later, the owner of the place, Osman, finally came up to say hello and to return my passport (making a copy is a requirement when checking into a hotel first night). He had plenty of good English, as promised, and we had a good chat. After that, I felt quite at ease. I learned the next morning over breakfast with him and his mother that several of my students had stayed at this same hotel just the weekend before. Small world.

My first full day in Selcuk began after breakfast when Lily, a friend of the family, drove me to the south gate entrance of the ruins of Ephesus. (Lily, it turns out to no one’s surprise, also owns a carpet store and got me to promise to visit before I left town. Actually, she’s a great gal, with great English, who has traveled to more places in the States than I have, and even lived in Colorado Springs for six months. Unbeknown to her family she became a “believer” there when she attended the now infamous New Life Church up on the north side of the Springs. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the latest news about her beloved Pastor Ted.) Anyway, Lily dropped me off at the south end of Ephesus and I went in. I wanted it to be a spiritual experience (the Ephesians are mentioned frequently in the New Testament and St. Paul was even imprisoned here for a time—those Ephesians didn’t seem to care for any new religions at the time). The place was mostly piles of stone. I kept walking and shooting photos (millions of photos—I love not worrying about wasting film any more) of the rocks and stones and carvings, but they just weren’t grabbing me. The library of Celsus was impressive, what was left of it, and the Arena was huge (I’ve seen major league baseball parks in America with fewer seats), but by and large it was, for me, just “more ruins.”

However, after some time in the Arena I sat down for a rest and a drink of su (water) and was visited by one of the Ephesian gods. Ephesus, it seems, is still filled with gods, and this one reminded me of my beloved Smeagol back home in America: the same meow, the same intense eyes, the same raccoon like tail. Anyway, this little guy huddled on my lap for a half an hour or so seeking warmth (which I could offer) and food (of which I had none). Together we stared down the long street that used to lead to the harbor of Ephesus. This was the spiritual moment I’d been hoping for, a genuine connection with a living reminder of the holy. There are few beings more sacred than cats. It killed me to have to say good bye.

The rest of the ruins were fine. Nicely ruined. What I actually enjoyed more than the park itself was the long walk back to Selcuk from the northern gate of the tourist site. This took me past groves of oranges still full of fruit even on this last day of November, past peasants picking whatever it is that peasants pick in their fields, along a long path arched over with gold (well, at least the branches of the trees hovering above sported golden leaves), and finally back to the city of Selcuk. It was a great walk of 10 km or so, and I was ready for some chay (tea) and a bite to eat. While sitting at the corner café I was again swarmed by the deities who infest this city. They know to hang around restaurants waiting for suckers like me to feed them scraps from my table.

After lunch I headed for the Ephesus Museum here in Selcuk. It is a nice little museum filled with items that the Turks were savvy enough to save from marauding European archaeologists. So many other archaeological sites were pilfered by Europe back in the day, so it was nice to see the Turks holding onto some good pieces for themselves. The most notorious display in the place was the effigy of the god Priapus, a male fertility god of Ephesus with a pronounced…. well, you can look it up. Another nice piece is the Ephesian Artemis, the major fertility goddess of the city. Before the Romans named her Artemis the Greeks knew her as Cybele. It fascinates me how this area has also become a major center for Marian worship. In fact the Pope was here just a day before I arrived and said a Mass in honor of the virgin. (Legend around here has it that after the Crucifixion the Apostle John led Jesus’ mother, Mary, here, to finish out their days. There is a small house north of the main Ephesus site called the “Mary House” but I did not choose to visit it. I think the Pope did the other day, however.) Ephesus seems to attract mother goddesses. Or perhaps the word is “evoke.” The museum also held a huge head and arm fragment from a statue of the Emperor Diocletian (one of the major “Christians to the Lions” emperors). The original must have stood twenty to thirty feet tall at least. The head alone was over four feet tall. My personal favorite, however, was the bust of Marcus Aurelius, the only Roman Emperor worth beans in my book because he was a decent amateur philosopher.

After the museum I walked up the Ayasuluk hill to the ruined St. John Basilica (yes, that same John the Apostle). I wasn’t expecting much, but actually found the site to be quite beautiful and took many photographs there. I loved the way the rock structures and architectural remains stood out against the green backdrop of the surrounding hills. The waxing moon was rising behind the Roman columns while I was snapping pics. While there another of the city’s four footed deities befriended me for a time. (Can you tell I miss having a cat?). Behind the ruins of the basilica stands a very old (Seljuq period) mosque, also photo-esque, called the Isabey Camii.

Since it was starting to get dark I headed back to the hotel to recharge my and my camera’s batteries. After a bit of a rest, I decided to try my first hamam.

(Ladies, please close your eyes while reading this section, and Bruce, Bruce J., well, you should probably just leave the room, huh?)

The famous institution of the Turkish bath was Roman before it was Turkish, and likely Etruscan before it was Roman. This particular hamam had a good write up in my tour book and proved to be a decent place. I walked in to find a small lobby area where, as usual, a group of older men sat drinking tea, smoking and watching a football (soccer) match on the television. They immediately realized this poor yabanci (foreigner, non-Turk) didn’t have a clue, so they led me step by step through the routine. After I told them I want “the works” they handed me a small drawer into which I put my valuables. This they locked and then handed me the key (which I wore on an elastic band around my wrist until the end of the ordeal). They then ushered me into a small dressing room where I was told to emerge wearing only a wrap around towel and sandals (terlik in Turkish). Feeling more than a little awkward, I did as I was told. After one of the owners looked at me funny, you know, like, geez, I didn’t know how to wear a Turkish towel or something!, he led me into the hamam proper. Inside I found a huge octagonal marble slab about twenty feet wide at the center of the room, surrounded by washing stations and showers. I was ordered to shower, towel and all, then lie on the slab until the owner could come back and “work me over.” Lying there on the slab felt fantastic, my muscles absorbing the heat like a much needed tonic. Eventually the sauna effect took over. For me that always involves a bit of claustrophobia, but I was tough, I remembered to breathe. This yabanci wasn’t going to wimp out! A few other men came in, washed and slabbed themselves on the other side of the octagon. They ignored me while they chattered on in Turkish. Meanwhile, although feeling quite the Roman Centurion, quite the Ottoman Pasha, I was also beginning to wonder if maybe the owner had forgotten about me. Eventually he came back in and put on his coarse scrubbing mitt, but he called over a couple of other guys first (they were no doubt “regulars” and thus deserving of special treatment) and gave them “the works.” This was helpful, because it gave me an idea of what to expect. When it was my turn, the man with the mitt beckoned me over and told me to lie on the slab near the entrance. (Bruce J, I warned you not to read this!). Well, I’m thinking, here goes nothing. You just haven’t lived until you’ve had a grumpy Turk wearing nothing but a towel around his waist scraping every inch of your skin with a mitt made of some long dead goat’s hide. Although I found it a bit strange, it was not painful, and I’m sure my pores loved it. When done, he sent me over to the other slab where his partner, the massage guy was waiting with his suds. He ordered me to lie down again and started heaping piles of frothy soap suds all over me. Then he started to massage the soap into my skin. Now, I’ve had many a massage in my day, but this wasn’t one of them. After all of five minutes I was done. He dumped a couple of buckets of cool water over me to rinse me off and told me to get lost. I showered again quickly, put on a dry towel and went back out into the lobby where another guy wrapped my shoulders and my head with additional towels (I wished I’d had my camera for someone to snap that picture!), and I relaxed drinking some hot apple tea and watching a soccer game for a while. When I felt dry enough I changed back into my clothes, paid my money, got my stuff back and wished them all an iyi akshamlar (good evening). All in all, it was a great experience to try… once. I’ll admit though, I slept like a baby for twelve hours that night.

On Friday I awoke, late, and grabbed a quick breakfast then headed to the local barber for a shave (I’d forgotten my razor in Ankara, and I love these Turkish barbers anyway). I can never avoid the thought, though, while they are working that straight razor around my adam’s apple, that this would not be a really good time for one of those infamous Turkish earthquakes. After the barber, I had the hotel call Lily and she picked me up and took me to her store. I really enjoyed working with her to buy some beautiful carpets. I always stress out when making major purchases like these, but Lily had a way of reassuring me. She’s the only female Turkish carpet seller I’ve met, and the fact that she knows America and Americans so well, not to mention speaks English well, helped to put me at ease. I trusted her, and I think I made some great purchases that morning. She arranged to have them shipped directly from her shop to Colorado Springs, so they will be waiting for me when I return. I also shopped for gifts for friends and family at other stores in town, and found some nice things to bring home for Christmas.

Saturday I made my slow bus-plodding way back to hazy Ankara, to rest for a night before leaving early Sunday morning for another excursion. But that can wait for the next blog.

As always, thanks for reading and for your emails. –Dan

# posted by Dan Shaw @ 11:52 AM