Ephesus

Inside Ephesus! A 3 Km walk from our hotel! It began drizzling a while after this!
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Day 15 - Arrived in Selcuk!

After Pammukale, we arrived here in 3 hours!! Yipee! Met a Bulgarian lady who is really friendly and directed us back to our hotel, Jimmy's Place! They called her 穿越时空 btw.. characterized by her 70's hairstyle, Reebok shoes with long skirt and a yellow poncho like jacket . SK & Twm were really affected when she left without taking a picture with her. She is really a nice person albeit her out of the world dressing! The staff at Jimmy's Place speaks excellent english! Jimmy's brother Adam married a New Zealander and some relatives come over for a visit! We were shocked to see a young looking caucasian boy serving us food. Yes he is one of the relatives. Just eighteen! Friendly and adorable boy. Another turkish guy keeps poking fun at me.. with "emily in da house.." but the one thing that I appreciated is that he taught us backgammon and we had quite a few games ever since!!

Romans!!
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Day 16 - Ephesus

Acting on the advice of the Bulgarian Lady, we took a walk to Ephesus, stopping by Artemis Temple along the way. It was quite a long walk, 3 km to be exact! And we saw and stepped on many mulberries that day. Just a few days earlier, SK kept singing the song 在一个榕树下 that drove me quite insane. Bad singing..tsk tsk. Haha!! Seeing the mulberries give me a deja vu feeling! It was drizzling that day... quite a bummer! We finally reached Ephesus which is an important place for Christians & Catholics as near Ephesus, there is the House of Virgin Mary. The highlight of Ephesus is The Celcius Library. The architecture is intricate and eye boggling! To think I am viewing a structure built by early men many centuries ago! Wow!

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Afterwhich we went to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers which was a really long walk away! And there was nothing there that we wondered if we went to the wrong place. So we had to inject some fun. Just look at the photos! The good thing is that we found the small restaurant near this landmark and had a good afternoon with gozlemes (looks like prata!) , menemen, turkish tea, our new found friend backgammon and our longtime good friend, cards! :)

Finally left this place around 6 pm! We spent a whooping 4 hours here!! And it was still drizzling when we left. Mans! We had to walk carefully to prevent mud water from sticking to our clothes. After a while, we were tired and desperate .. hence we decided to hitch hike! So we tried like 4-5 times in vain. Alas! A car stopped for us! This middle-aged turkish man was so kind to drive us to our town Selcuk! Hurray!! We saved 3 km! This reminds me that I questioned Ufuk on the dangerous aspect of hitchhiking when I heard that he often hitchhike from Leftkosa to Girne! He reasoned "Hitchhikers are dangerous to the drivers too so it works both ways isn't it? What we need here is trust". Words of wisdom totally! Our first official hitchhiking in our lives!!

Another Theatre! Beautiful but unable to beat the splendor of Aspendos!
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Excerpt on Ephesus copied and pasted (the interested can read):

Ephesus also emerged as one of the main centers of early Christianity. St. Paul remained in the city for three years during his third missionary journey (53 - 57).The Apostle John also came to Ephesus to live and was finally buried here. Ephesus was one of the Seven Churches mentioned in his book of Revelation.Tradition has it that St.John brought Virgin Mary to Ephesus after Christ’s crucifixion and that she lived and died in a small wooden house located about three miles away in the forested mountain above Ephesus at the age of 101. In the year 431 the Third Ecumenical Council was held in the Basilica of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus. In the following century, Emperor Justinian (527 - 565) built a massive church at the spot where St John was believed to have been buried. It became an important site of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages.

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Day 17 - The Castle, Saint Jean, Isabey Church

Today was quite a slow one and we decided to explore Selcuk. So we were walking towards the conspicous Castle unsuspecting of anything when 2 young children came up to us, asking if we were looking for The Castle. After receiving nods from us, they proceeded to take us there! I thought they were going to leave us at some point but they did not! It struck me that they were giving us a guided tour to the castle! Oh my, the youngest tour guides I have met! Anyway I was suspecting if this was a syndicate and who knows if there was a trap inside the castle (which is forbidden for entry). Then again, I don't know why I let skepticism escaped me once again. Maybe they are children and due to rather irrational rationalization that "if you are meant to die, there is no cheating death". As cliche as it sounds, the adventure of a lifetime begins!! We walked furtively up the hill and bending down at certain points as indicated by the 2 children. They are 12 and 11. The older one is called Ukan. At the top of the hill, they signalled for us to squat down and were looking into a distance. Ah! They were waiting for this tractor driver to leave before we break into the forbidden area! Clever kids! Curious on the break in plan, I saw that they have created a hole in the fence. We are definitely not the first tour group! haha! Hence, all 6 of us crawled in and at the same time, half joking that there might be men with armed rifles who are ready to take us down any moment.. Nothing dramatic happened anyway! We toured around the castle, the highest point in Selcuk! One of the few lucky ones in this forbidden area, the Bulgarian Lady did not get in here as well! One scary thing about this place is that it is infested with Cobras, as told by Ukan! After a short tour, we made our way down to find that the hole was covered up by a wicked man. He was standing at a short distance. I could not make up his expression but I think that he is totally sick in his mind. What an ass!! Luckily, we had help from another Turkish lady (not sure what is her relationship with that sick man). And it was time to pay our 2 young guides! We gave them biscuits & water. Like a businessman, Ukan asked for 2 lira. Afterwhich we shook hands and it was done deal!

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Ukan brought us to his place to meet his family after this. Seeing his family and place saddens me a little. They seemed really impoverished and I could tell they have not taken photos for a while as later we realised that Ukan wants a little favor from us - to take pictures of them! We agreed. So his mum excitedly brought out her baby, and called out to the grandmother. Together, they took a family picture. Heart-warming and makes me appreciate the lucky life that I am blessed with.

The famous Celcius Library!
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Next we went to Saint Jean and Isabey Mosque for some sightseeing, photo-taking. Nothing brillant here so I shall not elaborate. Went on bashing streets to reach a place called Homeros Pension. I was admiring the canopy formed by intertwined trees planted by the owner when this woman came out beaming cheerfully. We said a soft hi and proceeded to leave till she offered us tea! She noticed our awkward hesitation and beamed her smile alongside with her invitation once again. We accepted it this time.She was wearing a Singapore Shirt!! Wow! Talk about coincidences, she has a friend in Singapore by the name of Emily. And Emily sent the shirt to her. Apparently, Emily and her are great friends. We had tea and some conversation.

Ceiling of the Celcius Library
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Learnt that: Her name is Oya. She is part Turkish and part Greek. Her husband is greek and she has 2 children who were out at school at that time. Oya knew emily when emily stayed at her place and they are like sisters. Oya never travelled to Istanbul or Antalya or Cappadocia. She is envious and excited to hear of our adventures.

I realised that for them, meeting foreigners is like opening their mind to the rest of the world. We found out that she prepares dinner so we went back that night to have a home cooked meal. It was real good and filling, perhaps a bit too filling for our night bus back to Istanbul. (We chose another bus agency this time.. no more Suha/Sofa/Sufu!!) Before leaving, we kissed Oya's mum goodbye. I really dislike this sort of sad separation but then again, this is life and I am getting used to it..