Turkish Delight (page 4)

 

The Saga of the Fraudulent Tour Guide

(an amazing tale)

We booked bus tours for two major tourist attractions (Efes and Pamukkale), because we felt we would get more out of it if we had someone to explain just what we were seeing, in English, and the rate for car rental was very high (much more than the bus tour). When he got onto the bus, we met our Tour Guide. He was a nice looking young man, with a pained expression on his face. He told us (in halting English) that he had a toothache and he would accompany us to Efes but then an expert guide would take us through the ruined city, and he would join us after he went to the dentist. So off we went to the
Ancient Greek city, Ephesus.

Efes (in Turkish) was a seaport beginning around 300 BC, where it remained a modest shipping center. But around 50 BC the Romans took it over and enlarged it and built large impressive city on the Aegean coast. Sometime later, around 300 AD the Meander River, which flowed into the Efesian bay, silted it up, moving the ocean far away from the city, so the inhabitants abandoned the city. In modern times, archeologists have been uncovering the city and have found extensive treasures from the Greek and Roman period. Most of the great sculptures and artifacts were taken to big European museums, particularly Berlin (much to the Turk's fury), but the remains of the buildings and the foundations of the town are still there, in all their glory.

We were introduced to a wonderful guide, an older Turk who spoke rapid, excellent English, who took us on a whirlwind, breathtaking tour of the city, from the public baths and toilets, to the brothels, to the libraries, and the huge Roman theater, along roads lined with pillars -- we were duly impressed. Unfortunately, pictures don't really capture the grandeur of the place and the feeling that we were standing (or sitting, as in the case of the toilets) where Romans had been during the Roman Empire. Names out of the bible and out of "I, Claudius" were mentioned and I felt as if I were in another century, long, long ago.

Our young guide returned for the end of our tour, accompanying us to a place for our tour-included lunch. We were seated at a large table, with all of the others in the tour (not a friendly lot) and got a so-so lunch. I mentioned to the guide, who had talked a bit on the bus to us about the local places we drove through, that the word "fabric", which means 'factory' in French and German, means 'cloth' in English, so he was confusing his English speaking crowd. In truth, his English was very poor and he limited his comments to very fundamental things which he repeated a lot (i.e. "this city has an auto fabric and a pottery fabric", he wanted us to know that Turkey was industrial). We were very glad that he was not our guide in Efes.

 

The tour then went to the House of the Virgin Mary, which we could have skipped (and not gotten a free lunch), but we thought, "What the Hell?". By far the most worthwhile part of this excursion was the bus ride up the mountain, which wound around giving incredible vistas of the countryside as it went higher and higher. We're not going to speculate on how Mother Mary (Meremana) got up this steep grade, or how she got supplies to her house on the top where she resided, or why this particular mountain was any different from any other of the numerous mountain tops in the area, so that the blind, German, invalid nun envisioned this particular mountain in her dream -- we're not going to address any of these questions. I'll just tell you that hundreds of tourist make this trek every day and a loud mass was being held out side of the tiny house that was built on the 'very spot' that Meremana lived in 50 AD or so.

Our guide seemed as uninterested in the Christian shrine as we were, giving almost no information about it, he just wandered off allowing his charges to explore it (and the gift store) on their own. We followed him and as a small group of us waited for the rest of our group, we received the most interesting and passionate speech that we had heard from him, . He began to talk about the social problems of Turkey and how the people are being cheated by the government and how it was going to be no different after elections, etc., etc. His English was still poor, but at least he was telling us things in an animated way, albeit not very tour-guidish things. On the journey back to Kusadasi, he said almost nothing the whole way.

Early to bed to get ready for our longer bus tour the next day and the continuation of the Bizarre Tour Guide Saga.

Monday, Sept. 25.

Again we waited for our tour bus to pick us up (this time not an hour early) and were greeted by the same young man (whose name we never found out). I inquired about his toothache and he looked at me with a questioning look and then finally said that it was OK. We now had a 3 1/2 hour bus ride ahead of us and we'd hoped that it would be enhanced by a guide's comments, but our dour guide only mentioned some of the city names as we went through, telling us about the 'fabrics/factories' that existed there. When we went through a particularly poor section of farm country, with peasants in shacks, he said with a sneer that these were the "Greece people". Several other times in the day he mentioned, with obvious hatred, the "Greece people". He also made a major grammatical error by saying that 'this town has too much restaurants or too much factories, when he meant 'many'. Some of the mountainous scenery was fine and the towns were interesting to some degree, but our guide was no help making the long trip more interesting. There was a half hour rest stop for food and whatever, but it was a long time to be on a bus. During the rest stop, we had another chat with our guide and I mention to him (ever the speech teacher) about the difference between 'too much' and 'many'; he seemed pleased with the knowledge. But then he started grumbling about how he could never take a vacation to London, because the government had Tax for leaving the country that was very expensive. Also, he said that in three weeks the tourist season would be over and he would be out of a job and how would he support his family. He really seemed to resent the tourists, but tried to cover it up with a smile, occasionally. As we approached the area of hot springs (that's what Pamukkale is), we saw an interesting sight of a very hot spring, running like a creek, and women washing their clothes, carpets, and hair. They were used to tourist buses stopping to take their pictures and were very, very friendly.
When we reached Pamukkale the guide told us that we would have two luxurious rooms in a hotel to change into our bathing suits, one for men and one for women. They weren't at all 'luxurious', just motel rooms, and having 20 men trying to change clothes in that room was not a joy. Our guide made a point of telling us to keep all our valuables in our rooms, not to take them to the springs or to the pool, that he would be there to protect them. Now he said this in his halting English and most of the people on our bus were Dutch or German, so not everyone understood him. Anyway, the famous White Springs of Pamukkale are a bit of a disappointment now. The beautiful white, salt-solid waterfalls, with the pools of warm spring water are still there, but a bit greyer, because very little water is left in the springs. It is full of people sitting in the pools and walking on the white salt formations and mostly taking pictures. We stayed a while and then went back to the hotel to swim in the nice pool at the top of the springs.

 

The Big Heist!

Then at one point I asked Munro to go to the room and get some money to buy a drink and maybe a snack. He got the key to the room, which was just sitting on the hotel front desk and when he returned he gave me my empty wallet and said that we'd been robbed. All his cash (dollars and lira) and two credit cards were taken (leaving one credit card) and all my cash was gone, but my credit card and bank card were untouched. We looked for our guide, as did the man at the desk, but he was nowhere to be found. We learned that at least two other people, who had understood his English instructions, had also been robbed of their cash. We now had to wait until the meeting time for all the group (at 5:00 PM) to find out what to do, since no one was helpful at the hotel. When it came time for the bus to leave (everyone was on board) the guide was still nowhere to be found. The bus driver (non-English speaking) went out to look for him, but came back shrugging. Finally, an English speaking guide from another tour (I think with the same agency) came on board. She was very fluent in English and German and told us that our guide had been in an auto accident and that our bus driver would take us back to Kusadasi. I told her about our robbery (as did another English couple) and she was shocked. She said that we sould meet with her at the rest stop, where she would call the agency.
That 2 hours ride to the rest stop was not pleasant. We were very thirsty and hungry and mad. We actually hadn't lost that much money (about $50 in lira and $20 in dollars) but the feeling was that we had been betrayed by a guide, who obviously wanted to make a strike before he was laid off for the season. Because the Germans didn't understand his instructions or were two smart to follow them, he didn't make very much on his heist, and he couldn't go back to the agency for any more tours to rob. At the rest stop, I saw the woman guide calling up the agency, very agitated, pacing back and forth -- it was obviously a big shock to everyone. We felt extremely deprived that we couldn't buy anything to eat or drink (a British couple offered to lend us some money, but it felt uncomfortable since we wouldn't be seeing them again). That last hour and a half on the bus was even more unpleasant. The bus driver went another way and we were sure the whole bus load was being abducted, but it turned out that he just didn't take the scenic route through the mountains on the way home. We had to stop off at many other hotels before we finally reached our hotel, where we were met by an agency person who told us to come immediately to the office. We went to the hotel first (for a drink of bottled water and a wash up) then I proceeded to the tour agency. Munro was really in no mood to handle these people, so I went by myself. The people at the agency couldn't have been nicer. They cashed some credit card money for me because the banks were closed, they took my statement and vowed to follow up the best they could. They called American Express in Istanbul to cancel DM's credit card. And they offered us a free meal at the Toy Restaurant, across the street. I got Munro and we had a delicious, expensive dinner on the agency, which made us feel much better. We vowed that we would not let this incident spoil our trip, or our feelings about Turkey, and if nothing else, we would have a good story to tell.

Tuesday, Sept. 26.

The first thing D. Munro did was to go to the local police to report the incident, in case his credit cards were used. Unlike the "Midnight Express" police, they were extremely cheerful and friendly about the whole thing, but they couldn't be much help, because it didn't happen in their district; but they did record the robbery, for the credit card people. On his way to the police station, the carpet seller, that he checked prices with on Saturday, stopped him to ask what had happened the night before. When told, he was most sorry, as was everyone who heard, it seems that this was a very unusual incident. We were told by other tourists the night before, that you expect these things to happen in Italy or Spain, but not Turkey. Anyway, as I said, we put it behind us and prepared for our last full day in Turkey, which turned out to be the best of all.

While he was at the police station, I was picking up our rental car, so we got as early a start as we could. Our first destination was a little town called Didim, down the coast. It was a lovely drive through quaint villages and farm land, with the blue Aegean always off to the right. The reason we went to Didim was to see a ruin highly praised in the tourist books -- and were the books ever right. A Greek temple of Apollo lies in the middle of this small town that was the most awe inspiring archeological site I've ever seen (including Efes). 103 of 109 pillars of this temple are still at least somewhat standing (only 3 to their full height), and these pillars are superbly decorated. The flutes on all these columns were amazingly deep and large, like a dinner plate-size scoop was used to cut into the whole length of the marble. And the bases were enormous and each one was ornately and differently decorated. Even though this dates back hundreds of years BC, the detail in much of the carving was impeccable, not worn at all. One pillar had fallen and they had left the huge sections of it laying like a whole line of dominoes, with each circular domino, a 6 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet thick slab of marble. There was also a large face of Medusa that was quite stunning. We left this place very happy that we had made the trip south to see it.

Our next goal was to go to a tiny village on Lake Latmos, called Heracleia, where there were ancient monasteries. In this case, getting there definitely was half the fun. We drove over, around and through the most magnificent mountains we had seen in all our travels. Many of them looked like gigantic rock piles, where some volcano had pushed up these boulders and just left them there. There wasn't any vegetation, just these bizarrely shaped boulders, it was quite 'other worldly'. It was a long twisty drive to this little town, but every new turn presented a splendid vista and we weren't in any hurry to get there. We stopped by a Lake Latmos for a lunch break, which turned out to be very good. Then we took the little road (we had missed the turn-off before) that led around the lake to the village, Heracleia.

 

It wasn't much of a village (we were glad that we didn't wait to eat lunch there) and the Roman ruins and monasteries weren't as wonderful as others we'd seen, but the people of the village made it memorable. First a boy, about 12, wanted to be our guide, though he spoke no English and only a little German. He pestered us until we made it clear we could explore alone; at least we thought we could. He shrugged and went on his way. It was a very hilly village and the Roman buildings were spread throughout the town. We started up one path, which lead no where, then a woman beckoned to us to follow her. We wended our way down a path, to a hidden ruin, and she waited as we viewed it and waved us on. Along the winding path, she stopped and offered us some lace to buy. We said, no thanks, she shrugged and led us to some more places. We expected her to ask for a tip, but while we were viewing something, she wandered off. We ended up on top of a hill with a big square building, obviously old, and an old man approached us as we looked at it. He ascertained our language and then handed us a very clearly written card, in English. It said that he was the keeper of this Roman fort -- he kept the rocks safe and fed the dogs -- that his needs were few but this was his only job -- could we help. He lived in a shack next to the building, and the dogs were friendly; we gave him some lira. After we looked at this plain edifice for a while, he showed us to the path down to the lake. In the lake was an island, where the monastery was, unreachable but picturesque. Then we wandered our way back to our car, which we had left open (not realizing that we'd be gone so long and so far), but of course, nothing had been touched.

 

As we drove north, through more marvelous mountains, there was one more ancient delight to be seen before we headed to the highway for the airport. Understand that on every other hill and dale one could see remnants of the Romans, the sight of them became almost routine. But just before we hit the highway, we noticed a bridge over a gully by the side of the road. We pulled over to take a picture, and I'm so glad we did, because when we got out we realized how big this bridge was. It took three giant arches to span this ravine and it was still in perfect shape and being used today. It was very impressive.
The only stop left during the long drive to the Izmir airport was Selcuk, a town we had visited with the museum of Efes. We had dinner there, using up our last Turkish lira. The trip to the airport was uneventful, we got rid of the car there and had a short wait for our plane to Istanbul. We had reserved a room at a hotel in Istanbul, near the airport, since our plane to the US was at 7:00 AM and we had to be there at least 1 1/2 hours before. It turned out to be a casino hotel and quite expensive, but we got it for convenience only, since we only slept in it for about 5 hours.

Wednesday, Sept. 27.

Up at 5:30, quick hotel breakfast, taxi to the airport, lots of security checks, flight leaves on time to Frankfort, 3 hour wait (in airport only, this time), $6 worth of deutschmarks buys 1 cup of coffee, LONG afternoon plane ride to JFK, arrive 3:00 PM, bus, subway, bus, HOME. Cara and Bill, who cared for the cats, left our house full of food and flowers. We were glad to be home, but it was a perfectly splendid trip to Turkey.

 

Go back to beginning of Turkish Delight

Go back to DRU Home Page