Ephesus to Bodrum

This is Paul's sub editor contributing to the blog - he is finding the pressures and demands of meeting literary deadlines quite stressful and has requested a day off.

This morning we planned to leave bright and early for Ephesus, having heard that lots of tour groups rock up late morning in their coaches to litter the place with their tourist bodies, but (predictably?) the 7:30am departure deadline came & went and didn't make it to the pensyan owner's restaurant for our complimentary breakfast until about 9. We had had our doubts about whether there was any complimentary breakfast so it was quite nice that there turned out to be one, and had a nice conversation with the lady of the house in German about Ataturk before we left. That meant that by the time we made it down the twisty pretty mountain roads to Ephesus it was after 10, it was already pushing 30C and the whole place was super busy. In fact as Paul pointed out, the population of 200,000 it is supposed to have had in the past hasn't really gone down that much, at least during daylight hours.

Ephesus turned out to be pretty big and quite impressive - although obviously a lot of it has had to be reconstructed, with the existing original bits stuck together sympathetically with concrete etc, it gives a much better impression of how the buildings would have been where they have done that than it would otherwise. My favourite bit was the library facade which was tall and elegant and pillary and windowy and finished off with nice stone carvings. The main amphitheatre was by far the biggest though, and the upper parts were all cordoned off because workmen were busy renovating even more of it. There were some bits of cheesy but enjoyable entertainment put on too - some slinky Dancing Ladies and some gladiators and a short imperial procession. There were also some reconstructed street stalls complete with beardy men hammering at shoe soles / chipping away at the breasts of a marble statue.

We walked all the way through the town in our bike gear (I have to say at this point that I had abandoned most of mine & Paul had wired it to the bike for safe keeping - he was in full trousers + jacket and was carrying the tank bag - hard as nails). It was getting hotter and hotter and there seemed to be less and less shade. We had to turn around and walk all the way back again as it is built along one long street.

We had an ice cream and a drink of water and sat down in the shade to plan the next stage of our assault on Turkey. We decided to head down to Bodrum to take a bit of sea air (it's one of Turkey's biggest seaside resorts). The journey wasn't all that far compared to the ones we made in Spain, but it was so much hotter that I was struggling to stay awake on the back of the bike. All those vents in the trousers / jacket which I purchased at great expense just before departure didn't seem to make the blindest bit of difference and it felt like being stuck in front of a giant hair dryer for about 100 miles. Fortunately Paul coped better and stayed awake for the entire journey.

We celebrated our arrival with a drink in the nearest bar and then set about finding accommodation, also opting for the nearest one! Otel Albatros comes complete with air con (although it dripped worryingly near the plug socket for a while), and actual genuine wifi, and another complimentary breakfast. After a welcome shower we headed out to sample the famous night life. The entire shoreline is rammed either with posh people's boats and matching restaurants and bars (this is the end where we are staying obviously), or, further up, lots of fast food places, 'happy hour' bars and nightclubs. We went for pide (kind of Turkish pizza) and kebab for our dinner in a little restaurant with more staff than you could shake a stick at. They each had a special job, e.g. flattening the dough out and beating cool rhythms on it or ringing a bell to signal that the dough was nice and flat. They were super efficient and very friendly and gave us a free cup of tea for moving when a massive youth group came in and needed a long table.

For afters I tried some lacmun (or something like that) - little deep fried balls of dough covered in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon, mmmm. Not very healthy but mmmm all the same. The man making them got handfuls of dough, squeezed it til a bit popped out next to his thumb, chopped it off and sent it flying into hot oil. Nearly as cool as the doughnut machine on Brighton pier. We searched fruitlessly for a Turkey sticker for Paul's bike and wandered along the sea front before finishing the evening with a tasty-looking ice cream. It turned out to be made of glue and had to be disposed of, however there are no bins anywhere in Turkey so I had to subtly drop it in a bush (it took several firm shakes). Where do they put all their rubbish? It's really clean and tidy here.