s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

The morning of the 25th started in Antalya, and a quick trip to the Anatolian Archaeological museum. We had been scheduled to visit Monday, but it was closed that day. Hassan though it was worth delaying the day a bit. [And it was ! I could have spent another couple hours in there. -T.]

Nice display of 5000 years of pottery, showing development and changes in art over the centuries. The artistic content hit its peak during the classical Helenistic period, by Roman times production had changed to a much more commercial mass-production model, so adornment dropped. But at least more people had pots. Also quite surprising to see whimsical designs of 4500 year old pots.

I had not known that the region suffered a 500 year “dark age”, which was clearly evident in the quanity and quality of pottery. It lasted from about 1200 BC to 700 BC. If you know your history, 1200 BC is the time of the Trojan war. Yes, the “world war” of the classical world and the collapse of the Hittites seems to have pretty much messed up civilization to the point that it took 500 years to recover.

[There was stuff beside pottery, too, including some nifty ethnography displays, metalwork, more glassware, more stone carving and things -- plus this sweet little ivory carving. Isn't she neat ? They had repros in the shop (one of the few instances where the Turkish museum shops actually had something relevant), but they were sadly coarse in execution. -T.]

From there is was off to Myra, a city of the Lycian League. It is most notable for its ornate rock-tombs, which in appearance are very reminiscent of the photos I have seen of Petra. There was also a nice Roman-era theater.

We were told a story of the famous stubborn character of the ancient Lycians. After the men of Xantos were killed in a battle by the attacking Persians, all the women, children and old men committed suicide rather than submit.

During our driving about we had noticed cars adorned with big Turkish flags, usually tied to the roof or bonnet. Hassan explained that these were young men about to leave for their mandatory military service. In Turkey it is a big celebration, and a source of pride and unity. Apparently towns limit you to only 4 people to “see you off” at the bus station, as most kids have dozens or hundreds of well-wishers along. We passed such a street party, and Hassan stopped the bus. The young keen kid came over to say hi, and tell us (through Hassan’s translation) that he was off to be a Gendarmes in Izmir. (Of course, those in the army start immediately counting the days until they are done! We met some later at a rest stop along the highway.)

[Where else in the world do people celebrate when they get drafted ? Pride in their military is a key part of Turkish identity. -T.]

The landscape along the south coast was quite hard, sun-baked limestone with small hardy trees and shrubs. The steep, rough terrain made the importance of the sea for transport easily evident.

As we drove along we were told about the Lycian League, and how each city derived its wealth from a different source. Myra, from the Myrtle tree. [I thought it was myrrh. -T.]

Next stop was the church of St Nicolas. He is the patron saint of Moscow, which is why the place is always full of Russian tourists [Like, Tokyo subway full. Hassan cleverly brought us there at lunchtime, so we had room to actually move around the place. -T.] trying to sneak around and light incense- which is against the rules. Old St Nic was the Bishop of the local town back in the day, and is now the patron saint of children (gifts from the church), young women (he provided donations to cover dowrys so they would not have to resort to prostitution) and pirates. Yes pirates. Seems old Nicolas was a clever chap. His was the only church that would allow the pirates that patrolled the coasts to come in and worship, all they had to do is pay a fee. And those fees of course went on to help the women and children. So yes, Christmas is a pirate holiday! Loot and plunder! Just give some to the kids, and everything is okay!

[If, like us, you have long sought the "official" connection between Christmas and pirates (without having to resort to consumerist metaphors), there you go. Santa Claus and pirates, linked from the beginning. -T.]

His tomb was supposed to have continuously oozed Myrrh (possibly loaded by the priests). In the 9th century local pirates broke in and stole his skeleton. [Because, you know, pirates. -T.]

From there it was off to a “glass bottomed” boat for lunch and a trip to the sunken city. This city dated to Lycian times, and a massive earthquake plunged the whole thing down 6 to 10 meters suddenly. We sailed over the harbor wall, which was visible, as were some amphorae on the bottom. The site has not yet been explored, so there is a strict “no stopping” rule for boats to try and keep scuba-scavengers from looting. Apparently the above-water structures were never harvested for their stone, as the city ended up with a “wrath of Neptune” reputation. Hassan said that some initial studies suggest that there may be structures 30-100 meters down, suggesting a lot of downward motion in the area.

Afterwards we went to the small village opposite the sunken city, a village only accessible by boat that the authorities have decided to evacuate/abandon as it is just too hard to provide services. [That, and they want to turn the whole place into an archeological reserve. -T.]

After our excursion we boarded the bus again and had a long ride [through Kas to Fethiye, in case you're keeping track. -T.] to meet our bigger boat for the next phase. This was a “Gullet”, a lovely wooden boat. There are hundreds of them (thousands?) which ply the tourist trade during the summer months. [Every one hand-built and unique. -T.] We departed the harbor at sunset, and didn’t go far before the captain moored us for the night. I was the first one awake in the morning (by more than an hour). While there was no internet to surf, it was quite pleasant just sitting on the deck and watching the sun rise.

[The whole cruise part of the trip was a lovely relaxing break from the forced-march bus-excursion that some bits of the tour felt like at times. It was good to kick back. The crew was friendly, the food was great, and the cabins were comfy - small, but each one had an ensuite, which was totally unexpected. This is the part of the trip where it was made really clear what a fabulous group we had. There was no one in the whole group, not one, with whom I couldn't happily sit down and chat for hours.

The crew were all related & the captain's wife (who was also the cook) was delightfully independant and outspoken. We sadly didn't have a whole lot of personal contact with local Turks (well, with local Turks who weren't trying to sell us stuff, anyway), so Ushlan was one of the very few Turkish women we got to spend any time with. Hassan told us that she was a much better representative of Turkish women than the "scarf women" you'd mostly only see in the cities (especially Konya, which is very conservative). "Country women", he says, "are much more practical." -T.]

On Wednesday the 26th we started by going back ashore, where a minibus [The famous Turkish dolmush = "already stuffed". We had this one to ourselves, though. -T] met us for the quick trip to the “abandoned village.” This had been a settlement of ~1500 buildings only 80 years ago. After the collapse of the Ottomans and the rise of the modern Turkish state, there was great conflict between the Greeks and the Turks, in the end millions (forced) migrated back and forth. Hassan told us of how the rebellion fomented by British agents at the end of the Ottomans (Lord Byron being one major villains in his story) caused ethnic strife and fighting that had not been a problem previously. While it accelerated the fall of the Ottomans, it also caused huge grief afterwards. This empty village was a testament to those problems.

[Part of the problem with this particular village, is that the Greeks who had lived here were all artisans -- carpenters and the like, but the Turks they moved in to replace the Greeks were all farmers, who didn't like living on the side of a mountain so far from their fields. So the Turks all left, and the whole place has been a ghost town all this time. It reminded me a lot of Jerome, in Arizona, and like Jerome, some of the houses have been moved back into and fixed up. There's talk of restoring some of the churches and turning some of the houses into boutique accommodation. There's a hiking trail that starts here that goes through several of the big Lycian sites. -T.]

It was really creepy. A few had been repaired and reoccupied, but the rest were just shells. It had a very post-apocalyptic feel. [Also, some fabulous pebble mosaics. --T.]

Afterwards we returned to the boat, and motored further along to a bay where other boats had pulled up, and people were swimming. We were once again visited by the ice-cream man. A bright entrepreneur uses a motorboat to speed around from tourist boat to tourist boat, he has a cooler full of magnum bars (ice cream). On a hot summer day it is very tempting! But the seller charges like a wounded bull. Not like you can go to a competitor out there, though.

In the cove we had a chance to swim, so I took my opportunity and dove into the relatively warm waters. Apparently local Turks won’t swim until much later in the season, when the Mediterranean is much, much warmer. The rest of the day was spent aboard the boat in an enjoyable flob.

The next day we motored over to different cove where we could take a nice little 3 hour hike over the hill. Some of us went ashore, others remained on the boat to flob. The cove was an ancient Lycian harbor, and the path the old road to the city.

On the walk up we encountered a giant grasshopper, which reared up into a defensive position when threatened by the encroaching mammals.

[Things my camera is reasonably good at: zoom, action shots, low light shots. Things my camera is bad at: macro shots. For some reason, it WILL NOT focus on whatever you have put in the middle of the foreground, and will instead focus on whatever is behind it. Hence, all of the photos I took of this thing with Stephen's hand next to it for scale have Stephen's hand in focus and the bug all blurry, and this one is a top-down view so it's all foreshortened. So you'll just have to believe us when we tell you it was as long as my hand. Including my fingers, but not including its legs. And it was adorable the way it stood up and spread out all its legs to try and make itself look even bigger. -T.]

At the ruined Lycian city (mostly just random stones now, only a few structures remained) I was again filled with that slightly sad feeling when looking at something that was once a source of pride, and is now fallen into ruin. The wheel of history keep turning.

[There was more stuff up there in the saddle besides ruins. There was this really freakin' ancient cistern -- we saw more of these elsewhere, same style -- and there were some houses, too. We stopped at one of them, where we were served sage tea and gave crayons to the family's eight year old daughter. ...and got to admire the cutest baby donkey. (I did promise a baby donkey pic.) Her ears are a long as her head ! Squee ! -T.]

On the far side, in a cove where the boat was waiting for us, we saw “Cleopatra’s Bath”, where Antony and Cleopatra were said to have stopped and bather. No academic study of the site yet. The place was awash, demonstrating how this area had also dropped a few meters over the centuries.

In the afternoon we briefly traveled by sail, but then the showers returned, and the sails were put away to keep them dry. The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the boat.

The next morning (Friday the 23rd) we had breakfast, then sailed into harbor where we met our bus.

Much of the day was spent driving, with a mid-day stop in Bodrum. This coastal town hosts a large crusader fortress, built primarily by the Templars Hospitallers. The town also has one of the wonders of the ancient world. Annoyingly, the shop did not have good photos or books on the castle, just generic Turkey ones.

[Yes. For a country as keen on tourist dollars as Turkey, the museum shops were by and large a bust -- the same picture books, postcards, and cheap painted ceramics in every one. Bodrum castle is one of the best preserved Crusader castles in the east, and besides that is host to the incredible Museum of Underwater Archaeology, and the shop had postcards of Ephesus and tourist guides to Topkapi. Say what ? -T]

The castle held out a century after Constantinople fell. Was it the last Christian enclave on Asia Minor? [The castle itself was never taken -- it was surrendered after the Ottomans took Rhodes in 1522. -T.]

Within the castle were exhibits from the many ancient shipwrecks in the area (nasty currents + sharp rocks). Amphorae were the SEU of the ancient world (standardized containers), and you could see their design changes over the year, and how cargo ships were designed to efficiently carry them. There was a ~1600BC wreck that was interesting for its diverse mix of artifacts, showing how interconnected the ancient world was at the time.

There was a nice display of armor in one of the towers. Armor, on a rack, where you could poke it and everything. No annoying glass in the way. The combination of plate and chain was interesting, and said plenty about the types of fighting, and what injuries worried them most.

They also had a ancient glass exhibit, from a 1st century AD wreck. Lots of vessels that would have not looked out of place in a modern chemistry lab, lovely Erlenmeyer and volumetric flasks. We had the option of going to the Mausoleum (actually just the foundation- the stones were nicked to build the castle). [And any of those with classical carvings on them were later nicked by the English. -T.] This was the ancient wonder. Some went in, we didn’t. But I had the chance to drink my first “Turka Cola”. Har.

Our hotel for the 2 nights in the region was quite interesting. Built by the daughter of the last Sultan (after she was allowed back into the country some years after the fall of the Ottomans). Built in the 60s the architecture was a bit dated, but it had a nice sense of old-money class. [And a very bored parrot. -T] The hotel Kismet.

Next up, the big time of the ancient world- Effesus!