Ephesus, Turkey (6-7 Aug 2009)

So Petra

Next STOP: Turkey!

Arrive in Kusadasi from Samos island, Greece. Turkey is the only country which connects both the east and the west. In here, one could see that the country has blended in both western and eastern culture. 90% of Turkey actually lies in the Asia continent and the remaining 10 % in the European continent. Turkey in fact is a Muslim country and a very liberal too except you still need to cover up when going into the mosque.

There are plenty of food in Turkey which I love..apple tea, turkish coffee, go gaga over turkish delight (I am still angry that my mom gave half of my turkish delight away to my aunt when I hand carry all the way back to Malaysia in Sept), kebabs (which are aplenty in Turkey), their speciality yogurt milk kind of drink, Aryan (not for the faint hearted), the unique Turkish ice cream (must try) and not forgetting the Efes beer!!

Kusadasi is the first port that connects between Greece and Turkey. There were only two round of ferries from Samos island in a day, one at 830 am and another at 500 pm. We were lucky to catch the early ferry as the queue was pretty long at the custom. We were forgotten that in order to cross to Turkey, a passport is needed as Turkey no longer in the Euro zone.

the castle

sunset at Kusadasi

priceless sunset with boat afar




Kusadasi port. Took this while recuperating from my seasickness

colourful Turkish lanterns at night

Kusadasi town

Once reach Kusadasi, we freshen up and then head to the town to grab some kebabs and not forgetting Efes beer. Turkey uses Turkish lira (TL) and we need to change some of our Euros to that. The hostel that we were staying is very near to the Kusadasi port and walking distance to the town. We walked to the bus station and enquire about our ticket to Istanbul 3 days later. We got a decent bus ticket which was an overnight one and then proceed to ask on the trip to Pamukkale and Ephesus. We decided to take a day trip to Pamukkale using the local tour as the price is more a less the same and we got a bargain for the trip!

The next day, we head to Ephesus using the local bus after enquiring from the hostel, actually more like enquiring from the tourist information as the owner was a bit angry that we decided to take another tour to Pamukkale and not following his tour. We had a full Turkish breakfast with lots of bread and cheese and olives. We reached the entrance of Ephesus but was cheated by one of the taxi drivers after they telling us it's a long walk up to Ephesus wherelse it was not. We paid 10 TL for a taxi ride up and after that learnt our lesson and decide to walk back out for the bus. The weather was super super super hot!!!

Ephesus is the ancient Greek city where it was famous for the temple of Artemis. It was in fact one of the ancient seven wonders of the world and the library of Celcus does remind me a lot like Petra in Jordan.

In fact , I think Ephesus has more Greek influence that Greece herself and most of the remains here are still intact. We eavesdropped to some of the tour guides explanations while pretending to snap away for the history of the ancient city and later proceed to walk on our own. Although we reached there early in the morning, we could see a large tourist crowd gathering. We loiterred around the theater and took some funny shots before heading back out to Kusadasi. In the evening, my travelmate wanted to take the boat out for sunset and I end up having a very bad seasick..:(

Ephesus














theater