Vol 52 Day 5 Selcuk

My bus pulled into Selcuk at 9am and after 12 hours on a bus I welcomed a bit of a walk so I grabbed my duffel bag and started heading in the general direction of accommodations. There are only 2 real CouchSurfers in Selcuk. One of them was away and the other was not able to host me at that time but he offered to meet and have a drink. So I had to pay to stay somewhere. Poop.

Why did I choose Selcuk as a destination when there were no couchsurfers to stay with? Because my guide book describes it as a city of 23,000 people that seems to have it all. After Istanbul I was ready for something smaller. I'm an island girl, remember? I like small communities. There are basically 2 types of places to stay in Selcuk. A hotel or a pension. A pension is a European style bed and breakfast, so of course I chose a pension. My guide book recommended Homeros Pension so that's where I went. (That's the balcony of the room I stayed in).

How can I possibly describe the greeting I got at Homeros? I was met by Dervis (prounounced Dervish), the owner, who immediately took a liking to me. And I liked him too. He's funny and forward and very, very charming. He showed me the available rooms all the while hitting on me outrageously. It was alot of fun. He is a very high energy sort of guy. He invited me to drive to Izmir with him to drop off a guest at the airport. I told him I would like to but I needed a shower after a long night on the bus and I needed to find some breakfast. No problem, says he. He showed me where the bathroom was and when I returned to my room I found this on my balcony:

Now I ask you, is that a pretty site or what? And yummy. And there was Dervis. He was sooooooo eager. I don't know what it is about Turkish men. I have never been as popular with men as I was in Turkey. They are just so happy when you even smile at them. Dervis was smitten. And made no bones about it. He was so excited to meet me and get to know me. Now there are nay-sayers who will swear that Turkish men only manufacture interest in foreign woman because they want to marry them, thereby gaining a visa to their country. I believe that is the case for a lot of the guys in the shops who are flirting but not all Turkish men are so eager to leave Turkey (Turks can't even get a tourist visa to most countries let alone move there). Some of them, like Dervis, love their life and just want someone to join them in it.

The view from my balcony of the building across the street, also owned by Dervis:

We had some time to kill before we left for Izmir so Dervis offered to play tour guide and we headed out to walk to the Temple of Artemis, which is between Selcuk and Ephesus (more on Ephesus later).




Selcuk is a ridiculously cute town.




I'm talkin' a seriously cute town.


According to my Lonely Planet guide book, the Temple of Artemis was once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In it's prime it was larger than the Parthenon in Athens, with 127 columns, with figures carved around the base.

"I have seen the walls and Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon," wrote Philon of Byzantium, "the statue of Olympian Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb of Mausolus. But when I saw the temple at Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders were put in the shade."

Unfortunately, only one column remains. The rest of the columns have been removed to the British Museum in London. Click here to see a photo of one of the pieces on display there. Then imagine 126 more of them. There is an excellent explanation of the rise and fall of the Temple here if you'd care for a history lesson. Now, it's really not much to see. A hole in a field with some building remains strewn about.

I think perhaps this stork lives in the nest at the top of the column, which is pretty cool, but the highlight for me was these two trees:


A fig and a pomegranate. You know I'm a dork, so I was all excited- "Ooh, a pomegranate, a pomegranate!"


Dervis fetched me a fig. Yum.

On the way back to the pension we dropped into the carpet shop of a friend of Dervis' so that I would know where it was. He encouraged me to buy from him, assuring me that his prices were fair. The shop was gorgeous. Owned by Osman, his friend. What can I say? When I met Osman, I no longer had eyes for Dervis. Osman is tall, dark and handsome. And relaxed (as opposed to Dervis' hyperness) and super sexy. I was instantly attracted to him. I'm telling you, Turkish men are gorgeous! After the briefest of chats in which I warned Osman that I would be a difficult customer, Dervis and I left to take his guest to the airport.

Izmir, population 2,200,000, is about an hour from Selcuk, back towards Istanbul. I'm afraid I was unimpressed and I'm afraid I don't even remember the name of the woman we dropped off or where she was from or anything. I had fallen asleep during the drive and missed out on all of the chatting. From the airport we headed to a souk to try to find shoes and a jacket for me and beads for Dervis. Izmir was just not as pretty or interesting as Istanbul. I managed to find a polar fleece jacket at a good price but not shoes. Dervis bought 2 pairs of shoes from the Adidas store but I just couldn't hand over my money on a pair of Adidas when there was a brand new pair sitting by my door at home. I just couldn't. And really, I was only falling off of my shoes, twisting my ankle about 3 times a day now that I was clear of Istanbul's treacherous cobblestones. Why would I spend money on preventing that when I could use that money on a carpet? Dervis declared me crazy and off we went in search of lunch.

He introduced me to Kumpir which is a large baked potato with your choice of about 2 dozen toppings. Butter, cheese, chopped hot dogs, corn, peas, olives, pickles, pickled red cabbage, carrots, moutabel (eggplant/tahini spread), yogurt with cucumber, combos of veggies in mayo, chili paste and I can't remember what else. No bacon, no sour cream and no chives. I was pretty much in heaven.

Another available lunch option was this:

Which Dervis informed me was made from tripe. Hmmmmm, triiiiiiiiipe, goooooood.

We found a bead store where Dervis dropped a chunk of change on souvenirs for his guests, grabbed a fresh OJ and headed back to the airport to pick up another guest who is also a friend of the family. This unscheduled airport pick-up delayed our return, which delayed my meeting the couchsurfer that I had arranged to have dinner with. By the time we got back to Selcuk I had already sent a message to the CSer telling him to eat without me and that later we would have a drink.

The sunset view in Izmir.

I left Dervis to meet Erkan Can as soon as we returned. You'd have thought we were married and that I was cheating on him from the way Dervis reacted to my going to meet Erkan. He was so jealous! I must admit I was happy to leave him. His ardor had increased throughout the day almost to the point of harassment. Can't tell you how many times I had to ask him to calm down. He was calling me "My Darling" and "Princess" all day and telling me how wonderful it would be if we were together. In short, he had become annoying. But in a sweet, excited puppy that you're just tired of kind of way.

Erkan works in his uncle's.......yes, you guessed it....... carpet shop. And he is handsome as well. Sadly, he has a mouth badly in need of a dentist, which I encountered all over Turkey. I hung out at the carpet shop with Erkan and his brother, Serkan for a while, sitting outside on cushions, watching the tourists go by, drinking tea. Really nice guys. Serkan was funny and trying to act American and Erkan is gentle and smart. Honestly, I think I could sit in carpet shops and chat all day. We never looked at a single carpet. Erkan and I headed over to a funky Turkish tavern where we consumed a fair amount of Raki, Turkish cheese and fresh melon.

Erkan walked me back to the pension around 2am, stopping to pick me a rose from St John's Church garden. After saying goodnight, and artfully dodging his attempted kiss, I found flowers, a bottle of wine and a candle at the door to my room. The next morning a very pouty Dervis complained that he had waited up for me, hoping we could drink the wine on the roof terrace.

It's tough to be so popular.