Chillin’ Out by the Ancient City of Ephesus

On Tuesday night I took a overnight bus from Istanbul to the town of Selcuk near by the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. After a sleepless bus ride I was shake awake by the bus “flight attendant” and told to exit the bus. I looked out the windows into the pre-dawn light to see that we were stopped on the side of the road, not even in a bus station, and that I was the only one disembarking. I hesitantly gathered my things and got off the bus which quickly drove off. Once the sun came up I phoned the contact number for my hostel and was immediately picked up by “Carlos”, a Turkish man with long sunbleached hair and boardshots. We drove 2km down the rode to “Atilla’s Hideway – The Backpacker’s Resort”. The place is up a small hill in a serene grove of pine trees. The “resort” has a pool, poolside bar, hammocks, lounge chairs, bean bags, pool table, nargile (water pipes) and tons of boardgames. They serve a great breakfast and dinner and the staff if very friendly. Most of the people staying here are Australian doing the Turkey tour or working in the UK and taking a holiday. The place defines the word “chill” and is so peaceful it’s easy to lose track of hours. My stomach is the only thing helping me tell and it is quickly satiated.

Yesterday a van picked us up and took us to the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. Ephesus was the Asian area of the Roman Empire is the second largest ancient greek/roman ruins in the world.

At the ticket area I heard some Americans negotiating with an official guide on the price for his services.  I asked them if I could contribute to the payment and join their group and they accepted.  They were from Los Angeles and Palo Alto and had abandoned their cruise ship stringent tour plans to do their own thing for the day. 

The ruins were really amazing and turkey is pretty lax around visitors to the archaeological sites, there are no barriers or roped off areas.  You can practially throw your arms around 2,000 year old ionic column and lick it and nobody will stop you.  I was really impressed with the complexity of the ancient roman water sysem and pipes that brought fresh water from the mountains into the city.

We saw the ancient parlimentary house, terraced house of the rich, and my favorite, the group toilet area where important civil business was conducted.  If the stone seats were too cold the slaves would be sent to warm up the seats before their masters sat down, what a humiliating job!

I have some more pictures coming but I don’t have the cord to connect to my digital camera right now. 

I think this theater is in better shape than the Oakland Coliseum! 

Advertisement