Bussing around Turkey

Thursday October 9th - Antalya Airport, Turkey. By Jim

Today is our last day in Turkey, before we fly over to Amman in Jordan. We've been happily getting around Turkey using the pretty efficient bus system. Its all private bus companies, and can be a bit daunting at first - at Istanbul bus garage, there are dozens of busses with different logos lined up, with the drivers shouting out destinations all over the country - I guess that its organised chaos, but quite well organised. Once on board, the busses are quite comfortable - good leg room, and a little chap who brings you a cup of tea, and sometimes even a cake (and doesnt charge for it either)

Our first bus experience was a daunting overnight bus from Istanbul to Selcuk, a town on the West coast near to Ephessus. The bus station is about 45 mins out of town, but the bus company we were with put on a free shuttle service to take us there from our hostel. After about 90 mins on the main bus, we pulled into a bus terminal which was still in Istanbul, about 15 minutes from our hostel (although would have involved a ferry boat over the Bosphorous.

Geography isnt kind to road travel from Istanbul to other parts of Turkey as it is surrounded by water, so we had to transfer to a car ferry at 1100pm to go somewhere a bit closer to where we wanted to be! No idea where it was as it was dark, but there were dozens of busses doing the same!

We arrived at 800am the next morning in Selcuk. We'd found the family run Homeros pension to stay in - 5 mins from the bus station. Mama does all of the cooking, and her son Dervis and daughter Oya look after the rest of the business. The place is pretty kitsch with loads of nik-naks on every available shelf, table, cupboard etc. We retire to the beach at Pamucak to snooze away the afternoon after the bus journey. We join the other guests on the terrace of the Homeros for a glass of passable home made wine to watch the sun set, and then for mama's home cooking, which isnt too bad either.

Next day, we're off to Ephessus, and realise that we have left our camera behind(!) Ephessus is an amazing Roman city with some original parts dated to 3BC. There is an amazing amphitheatre which seats 25,000 built between AD 41 and 117, and you can get a real feel for how the Romans lived by walking along their high street, past where they got their water supply, bathed, worshipped, went to the theatre etc. The Ephessus museum is in the centre of Selcuk and displays many pieces discovered at the main site, including statues of the gods, artefacts from gladiatorial combat. Its a fascinating compliment to what we saw earlier in Ephessus.

Our final bit of sightseeing takes us to the Basilica of St John. This was built around where Jesus's number 1 disciple, John was buried, after he came to Ephessus with the Virgin Mary following Jesus's crucifixion. What started as a burial site developed as a church was built around it, which was sadly destroyed in an earthquake in the 6th Century. They are in the process of restoring.

The next morning, we were moving onto Kas, a picturesque harbour town on the Meditterranean coast, and just as well as the rain was coming into the Aegean coast. Our bus was delayed a couple of hours, but this journey did provide us with some stunning scenery. Turkey is very mountainous terrain, so there are lots of climbs and descents - the descent down to the Gulf of Gokova has amazing views. By the time that we got to the coast road from Fethiye to Kas, it was getting dark, but the next day, we took a bus from Kas back along the coast to the town of Kalkan, where there are some amazing coastal views. The drive was similar to the Corniches from Nice to Monaco. Kas is a prime package holiday place, absolutely picture book harbour town, with mountains rising behind the maze of narrow shopping streets (all selling tat) Kalkan is a similarly stunning harbour town about 30 mins along the coast. Both are expecting great growth in the next few years as a new marina is to be built in Kas welcoming boats the like of which are usually kept in Cannes.

No such development planned for our next port of call. The bus trip to Olympos again took us along some stunning coastal scenery, and also passed miles and miles of greenhouses, quite a blot of the otherwise faultless landscape. Olympos is another site of Roman ruins, but has been protected by National Park status. This means that no buildings in stone or concrete can be built. So we check into our log cabin in the middle of nowhere at the Saban resort. There is nothing to do at the Saban apart from swing in a hammock with a beer and read your book. Perfect. Meryl is the cook, and as 7pm dinner time approaches, the air of anticipation about the place grows! And with good reason - some of the best home cooked food we have had in Turkey is on offer.

More ruins on the way to the beach - these were recently unearthed, so not as well organised as at Ephessus, nor was Olympos as big a town, but they are in the forests, so add another bit of adventure (snakes) to wander round them. 3 nights of R&R, and Meryl's amazing food later, and we board our last bus in Turkey, bound for Antalya. The beach is pebbly, but idyllic in setting with huge rising rock formations on all sides. There are no hotel resorts, bars, restaurants or sun-loungers to disturb, that job belongs to the Russian day trippers who come in en masse on boats to look around the ruins. You can tell where the new money is these days as most of them have been tucking into their Big Macs.

Our last bus takes us further along the coast to Antalya, a modern, Meditterranean city, which has been developed for tourists over the past 15-20 years. It still has some interesting parts though - including the old town and the harbour, which despite the hoardes of German tour groups, are still nice to wander about or find somewhere to sit and have a beer.

Our final kebab in Turkey is straight out of Fawlty Towers. We are the only people in the restaurant to start with, and our intrepid waiter treated us to a little individual Turkish dance. He loves Turkish music you see. Fortunately for the restaurant's books, he has a reservation for later, so sets about re-setting one of the tables. It looks great as he puts the final touches to it, but the fag hanging out of his mouth drops its ash. Disaster. With much frantic sweeping glasses are sent flying, plates knocked over, but its all sorted in time for their arrival. And then they choose a different table...

So that was Turkey - huge contrasts in what we have seen - Istanbul a grand city with a strong muslim tradition, and tourist enclaves where beer is king. Roman ruins dating from 2000 years ago, and modern tourist-friendly towns like Antalya. Would definitely recommend it, especially the Saban for an escape from London's hustle and bustle