Turkish delight

Usually the first thing I do when I arrive in a town in which I want to stay is to search for a ho(s)tel. In Marmaris it was not different. I had already visited a few but was not happy with the price. Then a young man, in the age category I used to avoid asking questions to, asked me if I was looking for a hostel. After some hesitations I admitted. What I already feared happened he was leading me to a hostel. But to my big surprise when we arrived at it, he just said "here is it, bye bye", leaving me in astonishment. He did not ask for money or to visit his shop. At the reception of the hostel I met John an American, we shared a room together with a Japanese guy, I guess. I am not sure because any attempt from us (John and I) was met with an angry look and a growl so we soon stopped trying to make contact with him. Later at night we walked into town over the boulevard to get something to eat and I was impressed with the number of beautiful commercial yachts lying there. An other thing that could not be missed, not definitly positive, was the large amount of cafes, bars and discos with Dutch names. This town, without doubt, hosts a lot of young drunk English and Dutch people. Although I do not mind being drunk (once in a while) I had no desire to stay in the vicinity of those hordes. For one night it was ok, although it was a bit tame on the dance floor later at night.
The next morning I took the bus to Selçuk to visit Ephesus. Earlier in Morocco an archeologist had told me that Volubilis Rome and Ephesus were in the top five of Roman ruins. I missed Volubilis so I was sure not to miss Ephesus being so close to it. I stayed in Atilla's Getaway which John had recommended. Although it had a swimming pool and places you could lounge in the shade, I did not like the place much. It was to much like a resort and even far away from town. In the evening at the bar over a few beers I started to feel more at ease. They had told me it was easy to walk to Ephesus I just had to follow the path that started above the hostel. So that is what I did after breakfast next morning. Because I did not want to return I also took my backpack. Somehow I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, although I recalled no places I could chose, but I did not find any sign of Ephesus. After I climbed the hill behind which I thought the ruins were I could see on the edge of the next hill some ruins. I was sure this must be Ephesus. With renewed energy I climbed up through the bushes and over the rocks to find only a long old, propably Roman, wall. No sign of Ephesus yet. After further climbing I saw a few hunderd meter below me the ruins of Ephesus. It was much to steep to go down, so I followed the wall, which must have been the first defence line of the old city and the goats who walked there as well and hoped I could go down further along the wall. After three hours of walking I finaly was at the bottom of the hill with a lot of scratches on my arms because of the dense brushes I had to go through at the end, but without my fleece. I hoped it had gotten stuck on the brushes I just went through. So I tried to go up the way as I went down, unsuccesfully, the only thing I got was extra scratches. I found the place I had gone in to the bushes the first time and this time I found my fleece hanging with a cord on branch. Now with my fleece and again some more scratches I went on the final descent to Ephesus. I now had walked so long and had seen a lot of Ephesus form above I did not feel like entering the site anymore, also because my left foot still hurt.

I walked to Selçuk to have lunch, where I met Dirk a Belgium guy. He was traveling with a little truck and caravan and he invited me to travel with him to Pamukkale. I could sleep in the caravan if I liked. After the dinner, Dirk cooked in the truck and a few cans of efes beer it was time to go to sleep. It became clear Dirk did not feel like preparing another bed in the caravan, but invited me with him in his bed. I thought this not a good idea and I opted for sleeping in the cabin of the truck. Although the cabin was not so wide as I am tall, but I am sure that I slept better than I would have by sharing a bed with Dirk. Next morning after elaborate breakfast and doing the dishes with water heated on the roof of the truck we headed for Pamukalle. Soon I found out that we were not going to reach it on the same day. Dirk choose to visit all sites that were indicated by a brown sign (culturaly interesting) on our route and we drove maximum 60 km/h but most of the time close to 40. The first few sites we visited were not impressive. Nissa however was great. It had an almost fully intact theater and also other roman builings were in not to bad a shape. Of course I had my suspicions but it became clear that Dirk was gay and that he fancied me. I do not know what it is with me, I guess my boyish charm must awaken something in gay men. Unfortunately this thing that makes a mens heart run faster does not work on girls. At least I do not notice any effect. Travelling with the truck and caravan was great though. We could stop where we liked and camp, in the middle of town or just in the middle of nowhere. The next day we took another big detour which led us to Afrodisias. This site was amazing. Apart from it's beautiful theater and baths, Afrodisias had an intact stadium with a length of 130 meters totally surrounded with at least 10 rows of seats. Some seats were decorated as they had belonged to important sponsors, like vipboxes. The town even had a giant swimming pool 100 meters in length which was as impressive as the enormous stadium. The next day we finally reached Pamukalle, normally a daytrip from Selçuk and it was a bit of a disappointment. We had seen so much on the way that it did not really matter. Dirk had two bikes with him in the truck with which we cycled everyday. Together with stories from Dirk how he had travelled through countries by bike and the stories of the two Austrians I had met in Mali, made me decide I wanted to cycle as well. Dirk regretted that he had put the idea in my head, but the next day I took some busses to go to Çanakkale in the north west of Turkey to buy a bicycle and cycle through Turkey for as long as I liked it.