Day 133: Tuesday 29 July – Ephesus and Sirence, by Ken

We didn’t quite achieve our plan of being on the road by 8:00 in the hope of beating the crowds to Ephesus, it was nearer to 8:30 by the time we turned onto the road outside the camping ground in Smarty. A very large cruise ship was moored to the jetty and buses were nose to tail heading out of town. Jane was driving and I urged her to overtake the buses once we reached a dual carriageway. That plan didn’t work, it was as much as she could do to not let them get too far ahead as they sped along at 100 kph plus.

A Bit Low On The Approach Into Ephesus Airport

At Ephesus we paid our 3 lira to use the car park. We were the first car to arrive, but there were dozens of empty tour buses at the far end of the car park. As we locked up Smarty an old Fiat pulled up and the driver said “English, fish and chips”, presumably having clocked Smarty’s GB sticker. We said we were from New Zealand, the man said “Kia ora”. He said he was a shuttle driver and to get in and he would take us to the top of the ruins and save us a 3km walk. Jane looked at me quizzically, but I thought we should see how it panned out. He drove us to the end of the car park where we stopped and got out. He produced a lanyard which he put around his neck, the title on the tag read ‘Manager’. He told us his name was Sadun, the shuttles were free, paid for by the government. He opened the boot of his car and persuaded us to part with a lot of cash for two guide books to Ephesus. But Jane was given a free purple pashmina and we were both given pins with brightly coloured plastic objects (one of mine was a dolphin) that would bring us luck. Next he said there was a government owned carpet school nearby where women were trained to make carpets. He would take us there and then to the top of the Ephesus site. At that point I detected a strong smell of fish in the air.

Jane and Sadun (Jane holding bag with her "free" pashmina)

We went along with Sadun finding ourselves in a carpet ‘factory’ cum showroom (the sign outside read ‘Carpetium’) instead of the ruins of Ephesus. We were introduced to a man with good English who took us into a room where three women were seated at looms and a fourth was behind a desk colouring a carpet pattern on graph paper – she was the teacher according to our host. He launched into a talk about different types of carpet – wool on cotton, wool and wool and silk. I felt uncomfortable, it was very reminiscent of our experience in Morocco. We were shown a wool carpet being double hand knotted (much more durable than single knots) and a silk carpet in progress. The woman had been making carpets for 15 years. If this was a school, then she must be a slow learner I thought. We were shown a bowl of silkworm cocoons and surprised to learn that a cocoon is comprised of up to a kilometre of silk thread. There were a number of references to being shown different carpets later without any obligation to buy. “Yeah, right” kept coming to mind. We were told a good silk carpet could cost NZ$60,000. We weren’t tempted.

Carpetium

Silkworm Cocoons

We were taken to a large room with rolled up carpets all round the walls. Another man appeared and unrolled the three different types of carpet. Our host pointed out the differences. Then he said there’s a special Turkish drink he would like us to share with him. Knowing that in Morocco once you sipped tea together there was little chance of escaping without buying something. I said we didn’t have time for tea, we were on a tight schedule and needed to get back to Ephesus. He was fine with that and took us straight outside. There was no sign of Sadun, but we were shown into a car that took us back to the car park.

Top to Bottom - Wool on Cotton, Silk, Cotton on Cotton

Reflecting on it afterwards we agreed Sadun was a conman, we had paid well over the odds for two brochures and there is no such thing as a free pashmina. Government shuttles are not beat up old Fiats and shuttle drivers don’t have name badges that read ‘Manager’. We disagreed on the carpetium. Jane thought the man there was nice and she had learnt a lot about carpets, we were under no obligation to buy and the man handled our departure well. I felt he was a smooth salesman and his interest in life wasn’t to educate people on carpet making, he was there to sell carpets. Whichever of us was right we agreed we would not visit another carpet place.

We didn’t bother seeking out Sadun for a free ride to the top of Ephesus. Instead we got past all the tourist shops and men selling brochures, postcards and the like unscathed. Two shops had signs outside that read ‘Genuine Fake Watches’, Jane wondered what a fake fake watch was – was it the real thing? We entered through the bottom gate and were surprised there didn’t seem to be many people there.

So What Is A Fake Fake Watch?

The path from the entrance took us to the Harbour Street at the end of which stood the magnificent grand theatre with its three levels of tiered seats built into the hillside. In Greece everything was fenced off and touching something resulted in a lot of whistle blowing and shouting by attendants. In Turkey you have a lot of freedom to touch and get inside ruins and obtain a real sense of what it would have been like more than two thousand years ago, We walked into the theatre and sat in one of the lower tiers for a while. Then I climbed to the top of the second level (the third level was fenced off) and sat there. It must have been incredible to be one of the crowd of 25,000 the theatre could hold and watch a performance. The acoustics were amazing, from my lofty perch you could hear clearly the talks tour guides were giving to their clutches of tourists.

First Sight Of The Theatre At Ephesus

Ephesus Theatre

From the theatre we walked along the ‘Marble Street’ to the magnificent Library of Celcus restored by Austrian Archaeologists between 1970 and 1978. Inside was an interesting display showing construction techniques showing derricks for lifting column segments and how iron dowels were used to temporarily locate masonry blocks before molten lead was poured into channels to lock the blocks in place.

Library of Celcus

As I was standing outside photographing the library façade Jane said “look behind you”. I turned and there was a seething mass of people making their way towards us down the steeply sloping Curettes Street. It dawned on us then that the reason for the lack of people when we entered the site and the empty tour buses in the car park was because the tour buses dropped people at the top of the site leaving them to walk down and get on the buses at the bottom.

Here Comes The Crowd

We managed to see the brothel opposite the library and had just reached the latrine with its rows of sculpted marble seats when we were engulfed by the wave of people. That wasn’t too bad as we got to hear a guide talk about the latrines – how they were a social place and residents communed there sitting side by side and sharing the goss. I think we knew that from elsewhere, but what we didn’t know was there was a pecking order for places in the latrine. This was because they were flushed by water flowing in a deep channel beneath the seats. The best position was where the water entered the latrine, the worst was where it left.

Latrine - Best Seats to the Right

Next we visited the site of 62 terrace houses some of which were preserved beneath a protective roof. Strangely, the tour groups seemed to pass them by which was a bonus for us. The dwellings and a basilica beneath the roof were viewed from stainless steel walkways and glass floors. Restoration work was ongoing with thousands of fragments sitting in trays waiting for homes to be found for them. The walls of the basilica and some of the dwellings had been ‘papered’ with thin sheets of marble, some of the houses had ornate mosaic floors, another had evidence of an ufo preserve this important piece of history. 

Here's some shots taken of the terrace houses:

Tables With Pieces of JigsawWaiting To Be Restored

Basilica

Marble 'Wallpaper'

Mosaic Floor

From the terrace houses we fought our way against the tide to the top of the site which was strangely quiet. But then another tour bus arrived and people started to swarm past.

As usual I took far too many photographs to include here. Here's a couple more to whet the appetite:

Water Pipes

We made our way back down passing two Turkish policemen on horseback. During our visit we were bemoaning the fact we hadn’t bought an audio guide and didn’t think we had missed a booth. We were wrong, there was one just inside the entrance. We ran the gauntlet of shopkeepers and pavement sellers, stopping only to get an Ephesus fridge magnet to add to our growing collection.

Brief Pause At Shops On Way Out

We took a short drive to the nearby Cave of the Seven Sleepers to where seven persecuted Christians are reputed to have fled where they were sealed inside the cave by their pursuers. Two hundred years later an earthquake exposed the cave’s entrance and the Christians sidled into town for a bite to eat. I can see the Tui billboard now “We’re the Christians that were entombed 200 years ago”. Nearby was a Byzantine necropolis. Neither site had much to commend it.

Byzantine Necropolis - Cave of the Seven Sleepers

We had passed a number of restaurants on our walk to the cave. Outside one of them was a production line for what was described on the menu as pancakes, but being made from dough they were surely thin bread. Two women were busy rolling balls of dough into thin sheets. A fourth woman folded in fillings before passing on to a fourth woman for cooking in an open oven. The final link in the chain was the waiter slicing  the finished product.

Pancake Production Line (Oven extreme left)

We chose a restaurant nearby that also had pancakes on the menu. Half the restaurant was furnished in the traditional Turkish style of cushions, the other half had tables. We went for a table. Brightly coloured lamps fashioned from gourds hung from the ceiling. Jane ordered a mince and potato pancake, I chose mince, onion and aubergine. Both were excellent choices.

Lunchtime Restaurant

After lunch we set a course for the hill town of Şirence approximately 10km away. The route took us high into hills along a narrow winding road with little traffic. Described in our guide book as a most idyllic village, the reality was very different. It was only because Smarty is so small that we managed to find a space in a rough and very dusty car park on the edge of the village. As we walked we could see the road up from Selçuk that was gridlocked with cars and buses as they waited for parks to become free.

The village’s narrow streets were turned 100% to tourists with gift and craft shops, places to eat, ice cream and fruit stalls. The streets were crowded and, unbelievably cars were trying to drive through. At one point it looked as though the drivers of a large Audi 4x4 and an oncoming sedan might have to spend the night there while shopkeepers worked to try and untangle them. Jane thought it was a great place, I thought I had died and hadn’t gone to heaven. Jane was very pleased with a handbag she acquired at a knockdown price and I was happy with some saffron and fruit.

Sirence Gridlock

Sirence Shop

We decided we didn’t need an evening meal and munched on nibbles instead. We were both tired after a busy day, it was too hot to sleep indoors, instead we used our camp stretchers under Mabel’s awning.