Selcuk 18.06.10

So the original plan was to spend today exploring Ephesus and tomorrow to do a day trip out to Pamukkale before getting the night bus to Canakkale. However at breakfast when we inquired about the tours to Pamukkale they didn't seem to be organised very well and they were expensive, 90 Lira each. so we decided to skip Pamukkale and spend the two days exploring Selcuk. we were still planning on going to Ephesus right up until we started riding our bikes. WORST BIKES EVER! Mine seemed to have been in an accident at some point and one of the pedals was wonky making it very difficult to ride, the seat was like sitting on pointy rock and and the gears did nothing at all. Ewen's wasn't much better. so instead of making the 6km return trip out to Ephesus we rode into the town of Selcuk and went to the museum. Lonely planet raved about this museum but it turned out to be only OK really. it had some interesting artifacts but was not very big compared to the museums we went to in Istanbul. It had lots of interesting artifacts that had been excavated from Ephesus including some really nice colorful jewelry and lots of statues. they also had a display of medical instruments which was interesting and kind of disturbing at the same time.




After the museum we got back on the devil bikes and rode to St John's Basilica. this was a church constructed by an emperor in the 6th century (although i am not sure i believe that the emperor actually constructed it so much as ordered his minions to do it for him). They chose this site because it is believed to be the burial ground of St John who was an apostle and a prophet. the Basilica was destoryed in 1402 by an army and after that random people stole the building materials to build other things around Selcuk. In the past few years they have started to restore parts of the Bascilica though and some of it was still in alright condition.





We rode down the hill after this to a mosque called Isa Bey Camii. it was built in 1374 and is one of the oldest architectural buildings from the Anatolian Beyliks. Ewen went inside but i stayed outside because i had on a dress with singlet straps and didn't want to offend anyone. you are supposed to keep your shoulders and knees covered at all times whilst in Mosques.


we tried to go to a library Ewen had read about but it was closed for lunch so we went and had some lunch ourselves. the resturant we chose was kind of like a mini farm or zoo, it had lots of different types of birds (pigeons, doves, chickens, roosters, ducks, turkeys), dogs and cats. it was nice to sit on the balcony and watch all of the animals doing their thing.
we tried the library again after lunch but it was till closed so we gave up and rode back to the hostel. on the way we saw the Temple of Artemis which these days is just a single pillar in a field but back in the day it was a temple with 127 pillars holding it up! only one remains today though. storks live in the top of the pillar, they have created a nest up there. also later that night we saw the aqueduct in the town of Selcuk and storks had made nests on top of all of those pillars too. the aqueducts were used by the Byzantine folk to get water to their towns.
we had dinner at a restaurant overlooking a bust street of Selcuk and got to see some interesting people go past including a couple of guys with mullets and one guy that had hair resembling a sting-ray. we also managed to send out waiter on a bit of a wild goose chase. i ordered orange juice and after about half an hour it still hadn't come, the waiter had been sent off to several different supermarkets but couldn't find any oranges anywhere so i ordered a sprite instead. a couple of minutes later we saw the same waiter running down the street and then coming back after a few minutes with two cans of sprite. poor kid! and then i couldn't drink all of the sprite coz it was too bubbly i suppose after getting shaken up from all the running around so we poured it into a pot plant not wanting to offend the waiter after all the effort he went to.
after dinner i was buying some postcards and we ended up in a store talking to a Turkish guy for about 40 minutes. he showed us a photo albulm of Turkish cats, they all had white fur with one blue eye and one green eye. very strange but kind of cool! he told us lots of info about Turkey and gave us free Apple tea which was delicious. he spent about 10 minutes showing Ewen very expensive tiles and explaining how they are made etc etc. we are such suckers but luckily we didn't purchase anything! oh i nearly forgot, earlier that day Ewen was walking down a street and wasn't watching where he was going and walked into a table of ceramic bowls knocking the table over. four of the bowls smashed costing us 40 Lira but we did get a evil eye hanger thing. still, ewen is keeping his eyes in front of him from now on! ha ha