January 27th, 2009 
Turkiye
This was the first night I had some problem sleeping. I woke up about 2:30 and started wondering is there more I could be doing to fight the cold. As I lay there Evelyn got up and started putting on clothing to warm up because the room really was cold. That seemed like a good idea so I turned on the light and got dressed except for my shoes, took an antihistamine and when back to bed. I fell asleep quickly after that and slept well the rest of the night. I woke up with the same tickle in my throat, however.
We went to breakfast at 8:30 and it was the usual Turkish breakfast. There was bread butter, cream (processed) cheese, jelly, hard-boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, and tea. The Sammons joined us at our table out on the balcony. We talked about places we had visited.
After breakfast I signed the guestbook with: “What can we tell you that you don’t already know? You find poor travelers stranded on the road and whisk them to one of the best bargains in Turkey. Everything you do is the best it could be and at the same time it is the least expensive night we have spent. When you pick people up everything seems too good to be true, and then it proves to be both good and true. Thanks for a great time.”
After breakfast the taxi was waiting so we went off to our first site, the Acropolis. As I explained about Pergamum this was a city built on the treasure of one of Alexander’s generals after his death. It had ties eventually to the Roman Empire, not necessarily to the betterment of the city. There are all sorts of ruins all over the world, but when you picture someone visiting ruins; it is generally Greco-Romans with columns and capitols. We have seen ruins all over the world, but none have ever been Greco-Roman until now. This is the real thing, high on a hill overlooking Bergama. There are stone pillars; there is a hillside theater and a library (which I talk about elsewhere). There is a temple to worship the Emperor Trajan. At the base of the Acropolis there are arches that have grown old gracefully. Vines grow from the arches as if they were planned. It is a beautiful photograph. Now it is entirely the wrong period but as I walk around the ruins I hum Bernard Herrmann’s music for JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. It is about the only film I know where ruins play an important part. Not the greatest film but a very good adventure that still captures my imagination. I wonder how far this is from Thessaly.
Evelyn goes to sit down since it is a difficult walk up, but I want to explore the ruins a little longer. They are partially reconstructed, but you do see the pillars and the capitol and get a feel. It gets a real polyglot of visitors. Our driver who is already hitting us for 5 million (which I understand is an incredible rip-off) has me pay the parking. Well, it is not much in American terms. Where it hurts is that it causes inflation, which hurts the common people.
On the way down the hill we stop at the Red Basilica. This is one of those buildings that have survived the Christian times and the Islamic times. I noticed that the lower brick looks newer so I suspect at some point the brick was propped up. Evelyn finds some old stones with Hebrew. When we translate the date, however, it is only from the 1870s. Everywhere there are bright red poppies growing. We think those flat plastic things that people give out for some charity are poppies, but the real thing has a bright, rich red, just slightly purple color.
Our driver told us take as long as we want, 30, 40 minutes. There just is not a lot to see at the Red Basilica and when we come out we find he has driven off somewhere on personal business. Well, we rest for a while. It is only a matter of five or ten minutes.
There is not a lot to see at the Asclepion, but it is choice. This was in Roman times a medical center founded by the greatest of the ancient physicians, Galen (131-210 AD). Having been cured and impressed by the Asclepion of Epidaurus in Greece, he set up shop here to do the same sort of wonders. He developed the science looking at the circulatory and nervous system and systematizing discoveries that had already been made. Pergamum became famous. But it was too good to last. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius heard of Galen’s greatness and ordered him to Rome where he became the Emperor’s personal physician, undoubtedly limiting Galen’s studies.
That far back doctors used the snake, a symbol of the medical profession. Why the snake? He sheds his skin and apparently is young again. So should the patient. Here again we see a theater. Again some picturesque shady arches. There is a stream of water said to cure what ails you. I took a sip in the hopes it would do something for my cold. Somehow I think chicken soup would do more. We got back in the cab and road back to the pension. We got our luggage and walked to bus terminal. We traded our 2:30 ticket for a 12:30 one. The man at the desk looked like Treat Williams with a big Turkish moustache.
We went to a stand and ordered two Pepsis. We made the mistake of not asking how much and paid for it to the tune of 400,000TL. They saw us coming. Always ask the price first.
The current plan seems to be the best. We do the visiting of sites in the morning when we are fresh. Then we are exhausted we board a bus and see Turkey through a window while we rest. The only thing better is to take a night train or bus. That saves you a night in a hotel and the travel effectively takes no time from touring. You don’t want to do too much of that however since you will die of exhaustion, particularly of you have trouble sleeping on trains or buses. I find we are taking this trip more leisurely than we used to. Perhaps it is age catching up with us.
The first leg of the trip takes us to Izmir, sort of a travel hub in Turkey. There is no stop for lunch along the way. It has gotten sunny. Izmir is a big bus station. We get directions for the bus to Salihli and find it in the dark terminal. We get on the bus to Salihli. It is dark in the terminal but I try to write a little. A family gets on with an older woman who has just had what appears to be breast surgery. Her family stretches her across the aisle. She is cold and they turn off her air conditioning and the woman next to me, her daughter I guess and is later confirmed, covers her with what appears to be a piece of cloth no thicker than a kerchief. I offer my jacket. The woman who is caring for her thanks me, but refuses. A little while later I draw a sketch of the seats of the bus showing the back seat is a bench seat her mother could lay across. She motions to me that her mother would get sick. But her mother is clearly uncomfortable on the seat. My briefcase is soft-sided. With my jacket inside it is reasonably soft on one side and would make a pillow. She gives this to her mother and her mother likes it. Well, at least I could do something to improve the situation.
The family seems to be somewhat happier. One of the men asks to lend him the Lonely Planet to see what is in it. I do. We try to talk but there is too much language barrier to get much across. They offer me a candy, which I take. The woman tells me the sick woman is her mother. Suffice it to say the family and I are friendly by the end of the trip. I think it is that they did not expect an American to take such an interest in their sick mother.
Our bus eventually pulled into the station and I waved goodbye to the family. There are two (2) hotels in town. One is the $75/night Hotel Berrik and one is the $10/night Hotel Yener. Guess which one we picked?
The condition of the room was surprisingly comparable to $10/night places from my own country. Okay, perhaps that is harsh. It was reasonable. Almost clean. The window is broken but none of the glass has fallen out. It just won’t swing open. There is just a sort of sharp edge. But it will keep out the cold, of which there is little in Salihli there is little cold. It will also keep us from opening the window to let a little cool air in. There is an old puzzle section of a newspaper left in the drawer which would be entertainment if I knew Turkish and it wasn’t mostly filled out. The bathroom door stays closed only if it is firmly locked; otherwise it swings open. Luckily it has a latch lock. Unfortunately, the lock is on the outside. You can lock it shut from the outside, but there is no way to close the door from the inside or to unlock it if it is locked. I guess there are different cultural assumptions as to why you would lock a door here. The Hotel Yener is one of the Top Ten listed in Historic Flophouses of the Middle East. I ask Evelyn how much $70 a night would really set us back. How about $80?
We dropped our stuff and went out to explore the streets. There was a sort of farmers’ market between where we were staying and the bus station. Pretty much any town of any size will have such a farmers’ market on the weekend.
Actually it is interesting that there is a concept of a weekend in Turkey. In Europe and the US the weekend is the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath. In a predominately Islamic country there is nothing particularly special about Saturday or Sunday. Having those days off was really part of the modernization mandated by Ataturk. He aligned the country with Europe, specifically ignoring religious considerations. That policy has helped the country economically but has antagonized religious fundamentalists. To me it seems like a good tradeoff, but it leaves unfinished business. It pits the government against what many Turks feel is the voice of God.
We walked around. I suggested we each buy an orange so we went to one of the many orange merchants who, before we could stop him had cut open an orange to give us samples. Now we said to each other we wanted six. I asked for six and he started weighing six kilos. No. Stop. Heyer! That stopped him. We finally settled on two kilos, 9 oranges. Well, our hotel does not serve breakfast, so oranges will be our breakfast. I also bought a towel for 400,000TL. Then it was back to the room.
We have one radio station with decent music. It also is the one station with a horrible hum, as if someone is jamming it. For most of the rest of the stations they seem to go in heavily for The Middle Eastern Beat. I wonder why.
I did some writing and dozed a little in the late afternoon and early evening. Then we went out to dinner. One of the clerks from the hotel looks like us as if he had caught us in a mistake. See you are going out, but you missed that there is a restaurant right in the hotel.
Probably offering food with the same high standards of the room. No, thank you. We find a restaurant a few blocks away. I order the special. The dinner is a few pieces of pizza (kiymali pide) plus a mixed grill with a different kind of bread, salad, and yogurt. [I discuss the two kinds of pizza in Turkey on May 12.]
We pick up a large (1.5 liter) water on the way back. Then we head back to room. We write and listen to the radio. From the street we hear jazz clubs. It is a real cacophony. You hear the kids in the street, the music from three sources blending together and street noises.
I was passing the time pointing out the wonders of our room and telling her that we really could afford better. In the middle of it all the power went out. “Oh, now that slices the bacon.” Sitting in the dark I asked Evelyn, “Would you like an orange?” That required no power. After about 10 minutes the lights come on and we continue working on our logs.
Someone is practicing football down below our window. Every time they hit a store front with the paneling down it sounds like a large firecracker has gone off. This is our Saturday night in Salihli. Even in Turkey you have people who have to rev their engines and make as much noise as possible after most people are asleep. I don’t understand the mentality that says I have the power use my engine to disturb people so I will.
I go to sleep trying to watch from memory the film Jason and the Argonauts.
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