by Lynne Martin
We shared the few sips of water as the sliver of shade disappeared completely. I tried to remember if I’d slapped on sunscreen after I finished swabbing down the bathroom floor. Then we heard voices in the stairwell. The locksmith opened both doors. He and Kubilay, who resisted teasing us too much, were gone in minutes. Relieved, we walked back into the apartment to get Tim’s glasses and guzzle water.
I was rinsing out my glass when I heard Tim curse in the other room. “What is it?” I asked.
He looked at me sheepishly. “I want to apologize. I feel like such a jerk. Look what I found in my bag.” The apartment keys dangled from his finger.
We collapsed in laughter. “I will never tell a soul,” I told him. And I kept my promise. Until now.
The next morning, while I was busy saying farewell to our local pals, Tim called to me from the famous balcony. He pointed to Kubilay, who was waiting in the car, and I scurried back to leave. Within moments, we headed for the airport for our trip to Kusadasi, a resort town on the Aegean Sea. It sat just a few miles from Ephesus, home of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Tim, who remembers everything, announced to me during a discussion the night before that Ephesus was originally situated on the water, but through the ages, it “moved” inland as the adjoining river slowly silted up the harbor.
Thus began our second week in Turkey, which we spent on the road, a departure from our normal plan. There were several antiquities Tim wanted me to see, and we found hotels more practical than rental apartments for short stays of only a couple days. The magnificent Temple of Apollo at Didim sat on our agenda, too, followed a few days of playing by the Aegean in Marmaris. We thought that would send us to our next stop, Paris, tanned and rested.
After our short flight to Izmir, we set out for Kusadasi.
“Tim, look at this,” I exclaimed, just as he dodged a cart pulled by a pony and swerved expertly to avoid a tourist-packed bus heading straight for us. “The countryside reminds me of Central California!” I was fiddling with Victoria, our GPS companion who had made the trip with us and was busily downloading data so she could make her Turkish debut. We were in love with Victoria, since she never said “recalculating,” but simply changed course when we made an error, instructing us calmly about how to repair the damage and reach our destination.
Family farms dotted the low rolling hills, and the beige dried grass and scrubby trees felt familiar. A low mountain range ran along the right side of the valley and another on the left, with a verdant bowl of fertile land cradled between them. Soon, we turned toward the foothills and began to climb. The delight and heart-lifting thrill of cresting a hill, then suddenly encountering the sea—any sea—makes me catch my breath every time I see it stretching toward the horizon. Even after decades of living near the Pacific in California, the surprise still staggers me.
I exclaimed in pleasure at the sights, but poor Tim didn’t dare glance while he had a steering wheel in his hands. I tried hard to stifle my ecstatic comments because it wasn’t fair that he had to miss them, but sometimes, I couldn’t help myself. He’s very gracious about it most of the time, but I know he must get tired of being the chauffeur. The fact is that Tim is a better driver than I am, especially since a vision problem affects my distance judgment. I’m the better navigator because I know how to coax Victoria into doing her job. So with the three of us doing our jobs, we conquered all kinds of traffic woes without a scratch.
We pulled over so he could look down on Kusadasi, which commands a curvaceous turquoise bay. The coastal road is crammed with condominiums, hotels, and restaurants, and dotted with hulking cruise ships snuggled up to its docks. Rug merchants, kitschy tourist shops, convenience stores, and marinas full of gorgeous, expensive yachts punctuate the town. As we crawled along the road, I craned to see the hotel while Victoria urged us to drive straight ahead. Tim stayed busy trying to avoid killing tourists, who flip-flopped their way back from the beach while he also contended with cars, buses, and bicycles that crammed the street.
“Watch out for the kid on the bike!” I cried.
Tim scowled at my backseat driving. “Please do NOT do that,” he retorted. “You scare me to death when you do that! I saw him.”
I bit my tongue.
Of course, fifty feet later, while stuck behind a barricade, having trouble breaking back into the traffic, he groused, “Why didn’t you say something about the right lane closing ahead?”
I sighed. Constant travel requires partners to hang on tight to their civility, and I was not about to risk one of us finding the closest airport for an unplanned departure!
Near the very end of that long, congested avenue, we found our target, the Caravanserail Hotel, a big, square, turreted affair built in 1618 by an Ottoman sultan to serve passing pashas and their entourages. Completely different from the modern buildings on the boulevard, it leads the way into the old town’s thriving bazaar.
Tim had stayed at the hotel many years before. He took great pleasure in watching my enthusiastic reaction to the vast courtyard, where dinner tables were being set by people in Turkish national dress. Two men carefully removed individual yellowed leaves from the small trees, little tables and chairs sat on wide verandas on the second floor, and blooming bougainvillea vines tumbled down the ancient walls. Perfection. Gorgeous Turkish carpets were draped over the walls from the balconies, adding luxurious softness and jewel-like colors to the picture. A room in this sultan’s palace was ours to enjoy, well, at least for three days!
As we checked in, Ali, the owner, introduced himself. Tim replied, “I thought I recognized you! I stayed here ten years ago during the big rainstorm.”
Ali gave Tim a long look and said, “Ah, yes, I remember you, too. It was the worst night of my life! I’m delighted that you returned after such an experience.”
Later, when we were settled on our veranda overlooking the courtyard, Tim brought me a glass of the wine we’d bought along the way. “So, tell me about the big storm when you were last here,” I said.
He chuckled. “Well, Ali had draped the courtyard with canvas awnings to keep it cool during the day, and that night the place was filled with tourists from the cruise ships. Several hundred people were enjoying a big nightclub show and banquet. We were having a great time when it began to rain, slowly at first and then hard—the kind of sudden deluge like that one in Istanbul. Because everyone was watching the belly dancers and jugglers, no one noticed that the awnings were bulging with water. BLAM!” He hit the table for emphasis. “The first one broke, followed instantly by the rest. The place was flooded—legs of lamb on skewers and the guys who had been shaving off portions of them, musical instruments, tables, cutlery, waiters, and guests all gussied up for an evening out were soaked and floating in three feet of water.”
By now, he was laughing. “I didn’t get caught because I had noticed what was happening seconds before all hell broke loose, and I beat it for the stairs. Ali came upstairs hours later and brought sandwiches for all the guests, because nobody got dinner that night. I remember commiserating with him the next morning and he said, ‘Well, no one was hurt and I needed to replace those chairs anyway.’ I think his attitude pretty much sums up the Turkish personality, don’t you? Maybe it has to do with their being such an ancient civilization. They have learned not to sweat the small stuff and just get on with it. Kinda like us, huh?”
I laughed. It was true. We were learning not to sweat the small stuff.
That night we dined by candlelight in the courtyard, a mysterious, romantic space where spice traders once stopped. They secured their animals there, too, to protect them from harm. Our room, up a flight of stone stairs lined with enormous pots of bright geraniums, was small but decorated with mosaic tile and high ceilings capped with elaborate molding. We tried to imagine how many thousands of tenants the space had housed in five hundred years and wished we could hear their stories. A DoubleTree Inn this was not! And we were so grateful for it.
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In Kusadasi, colossal ships dock daily and disgorge tourists who are herded into buses and ferried a few miles inland to Ephesus. They tromp around the ancient ruins, furiously snap photos of each other declaiming in the ancient theater or perched triumphantly, and strike poses on long-empty sarcophagi. The next day, we did exactly the same things—minus the tour bus and umbrella-wielding guide—and we tried to tread a bit more lightly on such hallowed spaces.
Ephesus, an ancient Greek city, had a population of over 250,000 in the first century BC, during the Roman period. It was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean world. It is a glorious World Heritage Site, but, we found it difficult to become emotionally engaged because thousands of elbows and shoulders poked at us, and too many bodies blocked the views of the ancient ruins. Even so, we felt privileged to stand where the Ephesians received St. Paul’s letter, and to sit on the stone seats of the theater where twenty-four thousand people saw plays and performances two millennia ago in what is believed to be the largest outdoor theater in the ancient world.
Next, we visited the colossal Library of Celsus, a two-story architectural miracle. The library once held twelve thousand scrolls and was built to face the east, so that the reading rooms could make the optimal use of the morning light. We jockeyed our way past throngs of tourists to inspect wonderfully reconstructed shops and homes along the streets. The archaeologists provided informative plaques about the buildings’ former inhabitants, which we found fascinating. Cleopatra’s sister lived in one and was dispatched by an assassin at that very spot.
We didn’t stay long because black, threatening clouds moved in quickly. Lord knows we’d learned about Turkey’s wild weather in Istanbul and through Tim’s previous experiences here. We fled to our sultan’s sanctuary for cool drinks on the veranda. The rain hadn’t followed us home, so as we sat chatting in the afternoon sun as two Australian gents walked up the wide stone staircase, following porters who were horsing their bags. Soon, we were swapping stories and drinks, and making plans to share a table for the next evening’s gala tourist event at the hotel.
Our amusing cocktail hour evolved into a jolly evening of dinner and lively conversation. Hugh, an attorney, and Mike, who spent his career in the Australian foreign service, were partners in an antiques business in Melbourne. They spent part of each year combing the globe for inventory.
The next night, we relished dinner and a deliciously touristy performance featuring belly dancers, tumblers, imitation whirling dervishes, and showgirls. That was topped off by a long chat on our carpet-strewn terrace, while a massive moon hung low, lighting up the balustrades of the noble old hotel. Mike’s stories of living in India and other exotic locales during his career held us in rapt attention. He told us about being in Berlin when the Wall came down. He witnessed family members weeping and embracing after decades of living blocks away from one another but never being allowed to cross the barrier. His eyes grew moist when he spoke of the experience. All of us were affected by his story, and we discovered that none of us ever expected the Wall to come down in our lifetimes. It was amazing to hear his firsthand experience, and we were delighted to have some good conversation. His tale of renting a boat to be in the middle of the Ganges at dawn when the faithful come by the thousands to bathe in the holy river touched my heart. Mike said it had been a spiritual awakening for him.
Later, as our pillow talk drifted to the subject of Mike’s stories, Tim said, “Gee whiz, I just don’t get what’s so thrilling about getting up before dawn, hiring some leaky boat from a guy you don’t know anything about, and then watching a bunch of starving people splash around in a river.”
My husband is a lovely man, but perhaps his soul could use a little work.
***
After a morning of cruising the tourist shops (“Del Boy, the Famous Genuine Fake Watch Store” won the Martins’ Most Hilarious award with extra credit for honesty), I parked myself at a little table on the wide stone veranda outside our room. I was determined to stay at my computer until I completed a story about our transatlantic cruise for my blog. I’d reached my favorite part—the food, of course—when I heard a familiar click. After a brief pause, I heard another click, and then a low chuckle. I glanced over the second-floor railing, draped in a gorgeous silk Turkish carpet we had been admiring all afternoon. Ali, the hotel owner, and another man sat under the broad-leafed trees, playing backgammon so fast that I could hardly see their hands move.
Let me explain: I love backgammon. So after a brief struggle with my work ethic (which I won), I marched down the broad stone steps to the table. I explained that I was an enthusiastic backgammon player and asked if I could watch the match. They politely agreed and beckoned for me to sit with them. The next forty-five minutes were outrageously entertaining. Both men were experts, and it was evident they had played hundreds of games together during their long friendship. They passed the smallest pair of dice I had ever seen back and forth at blinding speed, making savvy, dangerous moves I never would have tried. Or even considered. We didn’t chat at all, but I think they loved having a tall blond enthusiastic American lady as an audience, because they played more and more aggressively. They seldom spoke between themselves but smiled when one or the other made a particularly delicious or sometimes a bad move. They laughed aloud when a stroke of luck changed the game entirely.
Finally, my guilty conscience propelled me to traipse back upstairs to my task. A few minutes later, I was surprised to see the owner walking across the terrace toward me. I saw a board under his arm. Oh, my God, I thought, alarmed. He wants me to play backgammon with him and I will be humiliated.
I have played the game for decades and have had the good fortune of winning often. However, he played on an entirely different level. He held out the board. “This is a gift from the hotel. Such a devoted player deserves a proper board.”
I was speechless. I told him that it was one of the nicest surprises and certainly the most charming gift I could imagine. Although we travel light, the backgammon board from the Caravanserail Hotel earned its place in our luggage…no matter what! His unexpected thoughtfulness reinforced our love of the Turkish people and appreciation of their generosity to visitors.
Every day as we came and went through the main courtyard, we noticed a store tucked under the building. Unlike its competitors in the bazaar, where goods were piled high and presided over by assertive salesmen who noisily competed for tourists’ attention, Tayfun Kaya’s store was discreet and refined. The rugs that gave the hotel such a luxurious feel belonged to him. They were available, along with expensive, tasteful jewelry. We chatted with him several times and found him to be sophisticated, sincere, and an excellent English speaker.
One day as we passed by, he was demonstrating how silkworms create their sought-after product to a group of tourists. The larvae were bobbing in a water trough that was about waist high, and a contraption above it moved back and forth as the operator pushed a lever with his foot, pulling the silk from the larvae and winding it onto a spindle. It was fascinating to see the basic task that precedes the weaving process of the gorgeous silk rugs we saw in the more upscale rug stores. After his presentation, we talked with Tayfun about returning to Kusadasi for a longer stay. We mentioned that the rental opportunities we saw online in Kusadasi seemed to be overpriced, and we didn’t know the neighborhoods or realities of living there for a time. “Come with me, my friends,” he boomed. “Step into my office and let’s see what we can do.”
First, he showed us photos of his family, two drop-dead-gorgeous teenage girls and a wife who looked like a New York model.
Next, he tapped away on his computer and found a Turkish website presenting excellent apartments and condominiums at half the price of the same sites on English-language sites. He offered to help us find one when we return. We were delighted to learn about that, and it means that one day, we will take him up on his kind offer. Turkish people were moving up fast on our favorite people list.
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br /> The next day, as we were leaving the hotel, he walked with us toward the lobby. “Gosh, Tayfun, I feel guilty about taking so much of your time,” I said. “I wish we could buy a rug from you, but you know we don’t even own a floor to put it on.”
He stopped in mid-stride and laughed. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t sell you one of these rugs. They’re strictly for the tourists.”
We giggled at his joke halfway to Didim, site of the Temple of Apollo, the fourth largest ancient Greek sanctuary and the spot where the Oracle of Apollo dispensed her wisdom. The ruins sit incongruously in the middle of a modern neighborhood and are surprisingly unsought by tourists, perhaps because they’re off the beaten track. The bases of the one hundred twenty-two carved columns and soaring entryway were ours to enjoy in peace on that beautiful spring afternoon. Unlike Ephesus, there were no other tourists at the site.
The ancient Greeks situated their temple on top of an impressive hill so their enemies would see the evidence of the Greeks’ mastery over their part of the world. I touched the intricate designs and imagined the person who chiseled them into the stone, never dreaming that his work would be intimately admired thousands of years later. We sat on the very spot where the oracle predicted the future. What a thrill! Our willingness to get off the tourist track rewarded us with a personal connection with history.
I wish the goddess’s prophetic powers could have saved us from our next hotel, but it was not meant to be. Historical beauty and lofty thoughts were not enough to compensate for the terrible night we spent in Didim. It seems we failed to read the fine print about both the town and the hotel, a lesson that will remain with us always.
What we thought would be a couple of nights in a glamorous oceanfront resort turned out to be a one-night stand in a sleazy, ill-furnished joint in a town comprising hundreds of substandard, concrete condominium complexes with the charm of military bunkers. The sole purpose? For freezing Europeans to thaw themselves on a budget. Our “all-inclusive” hotel turned out not to include incidentals like towels, sheets, or air conditioning. Every amenity, even basics, carried an extra charge. Cash, if you please. All of this was listed behind a tiny toggle on their website, which unfortunately we missed in our research. To make matters worse, the management was fond of piping loud Euro-trash music—the last straw for a woman who wears two pairs of earplugs and an eye mask to bed. By the time we were ready to leave, the young man whom we summoned with each discovery looked ready to do us bodily harm. Needless to say, the feeling was mutual.