Travels with The Rayman

Viewing the Roman ruins in Ephesus was on our agenda today. And as all tours do, we also had surprise stops at a carpet weaving school that included a jewelry store, Mother Mary’s home according to a sick German nun who had a vision of this place and the church took her seriously for some reason I forget and then they went around Ephesus looking for a house that matched her description and they found it and pronounced it so and reconstructed it as most of it was gone and they called it Mother Mary’s house. I don’t know. Perhaps the Ephesus Chamber of Commerce was in cahoots with the church on this one because the place was jam packed with tourists of all persuasions. A museum was on the list of places to visit and also one site that had a catholic church, a mosque and a byzantine chapel, and a Roman temple to some gods. Secular took on a whole new meaning!!

We are happy to announce that no more rugs were purchased. No jewelry. Just one hat for the Rayman that is very cool.

So, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. But before I share them I want to tell you that we were on this tour with a couple from So. Africa, a family of 3 from NZ who are sailing the oceans blue and are on their boat here and an eye surgeon and his daughter from India. A really interesting group of folks to break bread with and spend the day with. I know. I shouldn’t end the sentence with a with. But I’m too tired to rearrange the words at this point. And I know, dear reader, that you will get the point with or without a with at the end of the sentence.

With that, let me share some pictures.

A bed bug.

 
By the dock of the bay
Mother Mary’s house, reconstructed.
Sort of a catholic wailing wall, wishing wall full of notes they encourage you to hang. We didn’t.
Moi at a small coliseum.
A roman relief of Aphrodite, I think.
Rayman and statue.
Moi and the library at the end of the boulevard of ruins.
Me again, Rayman was on a tear with the camera, standing in front of what is left of the library. Really impressive.
This pictures puts the place in perspective.
The coliseum that sat about 25,000, where John spoke to the Ephesians. Sir Elton John performed here to a much larger crowd.
Loved this sign. May also apply to our new rugs.
Naturally died wool at the carpet school…drying out.
Relief at the museum.
Penis art from the ancients.
We saw thing from the 8th century B.C. Made us feel young. Rayman looking diminutive next to part of a statue.
View from the pool of our hotel. Oh, Aegean, you are beautiful.

Life is made up of ying and yang and we just had a big bite of the ying and yang sandwich.

After our tour of Cappadocia ended, the tour guide and his driver took us to the airport about an hour away. They played some violent movie where every other word was of the four letter variety on the overhead movie screen in the van. Since we had hiked and since we had late flights to content with, we wanted to sleep. Fat chance.

We had a flight back to Istanbul that left about 8 p.m. and a connecting flight to Izmir that was scheduled for 11:45 p.m. We were to arrive in Izmir at 12:50 a.m. Both flights were late and we did not arrive until almost 2 a.m. Then there was an hour long trip to our hotel in Kusadasi. We checked in at 3 a.m. Ouch. We got to our room, threw our clothes off, rinsed off the Cappadocia “fairy sand” we were covered in and crashed as we had an 8:30 pick up for a tour. I know. Crazy.

At 6:45 a.m. the Rayman woke me up when he said, “Dianna, We have bed bugs.” It took me about a nano second to roust myself out of a deep sleep and literally jump out of bed. “BED BUGS. I’m not staying here.” The Rayman agreed and after an inspection by the hotel management, we went after a shower down to the lobby to start complaining. The long and short of it is that the Rayman ended up in the front lobby registration desk having a very “direct conversation” with the OneNation the tour company on the hotel’s telephone. “No. If you would stop talking and listen to me” , he continued. As the man on the other end of the phone tried to terminate the tour by refunding us for the hotel in Istanbul two days from now and refunding us our valet service, the Rayman had a different idea. Pretty soon, any one in the lobby could hear him say, “Excuse me. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable…the first place you booked us had mold. This place has bed bugs. We want another hotel.”

About a half an hour later I was on the computer seeing if there was a way to return to NYC earlier, a man came in and said he was there to move us to another hotel. And off we went to a much better hotel with a balcony overlooking the Aegean Sea and with a distinct absence of bedbugs… so far. Our bed clothes are in a plastic bag, the bags have been inspected for the vile creatures and we’ve spent the day trying to leave Turkey… then trying to stay in Turkey.

As of now we have negotiated two extra nights at this hotel, rescheduled our tour of Ephesus for tomorrow, and return transportation to Izmir. We decided it was harder to leave early than it is to stay. Turkish Air would not reschedule the flight back to Istanbul without talking to the tour operator who booked the flight. The tour company found us a flight but it was another “midnight express”. With only 3 1/2 hours of sleep, we just couldn’t warm up to that idea. So. There you have it.

Observations: The Rayman and I have had a chance to travel by making all our reservations on previous trips. And we had a tour where they made all the plans. We never have been lost using this tour company but the mold and bed bugs episodes have us abandoning the idea of using tour companies in future travels. It hasn’t worked out, this tour company idea.

Oh, and did you know that these late night one hour flights are filled up with crying babies? It’s a flying nursery and you cannot sleep. One mother walked the aisle with her screaming child in her arms the entire flight. Another sat still but the child wailed away for 3/4 of the flight…in the middle of the night. OMG. Really, when they pre-board, half the plane is filled up by mothers and their children. The Rayman thinks they just live by a different clock here. Whatever. It’s much different than the U.S. generally.

The big ship just blew it’s horn. There is a Viking cruise ship (upright) moored here. They are on their way out so the city will be quieter tonight when we venture out to find a place to eat. It is warm and a bit muggy. The sea is sparkling. Quite charming, really.

And the tour guide tomorrow is the same nice fellow that delivered us to our second hotel this a.m. Did I mention he isn’t hard to look at? Perhaps things are looking up.

Oh, and the water heater has been installed. I learned how to use FaceTime at midnight in the airport at Istanbul. Our realtor, Tim, taught me how to do it and we had a good conversation. Amazing. So, Beau is returning to our house with Nancy and Ginger since the house is fully functioning again. Now all we have to do is figure out where on earth we are going to live in the future…both near and far (term). I can tell you one thing. It won’t be in Turkey. We have really enjoyed 95% of this country. And our dollar would go a very long way. The food is wonderful. But, we won’t be moving here. Perhaps Morro Bay or San Luis or Avila or Paso!!! Yes, that’s more to our liking.

Before I forget, the Turks have the best tow trucks we have ever seen. They only work on cars that are parked parallel but they are amazing. They drive up to the side of car. Two L shaped arms slide down and under the offending the car. Then it lifts the car up and on to the bed of the truck. The truck driver doesn’t even have to get out of truck as far as we could see. Never seen anything like it. It would work great in San Francisco and other large cities with narrow streets.

Today was our private tour where the possibility of getting lost was vanquished. We hiked, we walked, we climbed, we stooped. And we took lots of pictures. This place really can’t be captured on a camera but I’ll bore you with my pictures just the same. Here goes. Rayman in front of our hotel waiting for the guide.

 
Another view looking up from the street in front of our hotel..there is smoke coming out of that chimney. See below.

 

These cones are eroding unless they have basalt dark tops.
Grape vines and cave houses. Many of these caves had special holes for the pigeons. The collected the pigeon poop and carried it down in large carriers on the inside of these structures and fertilized their crops.

 
Inside one of the caves, a church.
Pigeon holes!!
A wildflower.
A site that is eroding. The sandstone is falling away exposing the caves.

 
The fairy structures. See the dark basalt protecting the underneath structure. Looks like something familiar. Mushrooms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

Check out the website above for a detailed accounting of the history of the place.

Dear readers, we are now proud owners of two Turkish carpets which we bought this p.m., our last day in Istanbul. What got into us? A good sales guy and real desire to have a couple of area rugs that we really think we will enjoy. So there you have it. Actually there is more to the story. Stay tuned.

The experience may have been worth the price. This nice fellow we met on the street had a carpet shop on a side street near the Koptaki Palace which we were going to visit. His carpet shop was 7 stories high and was filled with old tribal head gear and a massive amount of carpets. We had done the carpet buying thing a few days earlier so we had learned quite a bit about prices and quality of rugs from that experience. But that is all we knew. We also knew what we liked so finding something that would meet our need… not too large as we don’t know where the heck we’re going to end up after the sale of our house…was important to the process. Of course, the sales guy was certain that these sizes would fit anywhere. So we ended up with a runner and a rectangular carpet…oh, here are the pictures. What do you think?

 

 

 

So, here we are up in the air on the way to Cappadocia. I’ve had a 4 hour sleep night, very little to eat and I’m sitting on a plane with lots of head scarves. The flight attendants don’t wear them. The young girls don’t wear them. The men don’t wear them…but pert near everyone else has one on.

I was able to get free wi-fi at the airport after a bit of trying. That was good. Power stations are in short supply and I only have 39% of my battery left. The flight is a short one. Only an hour. We saw some snowcapped mountains but snapping pictures of them would have required me to climb on top of the nice young man next to me and I’m afraid he might give me a karate chop to the solarplexis so I decided to let that photo op go.

Last night the family got together again and after eating, the Rayman and I went to the hotel next door to peer off their rooftop patio to see the fading sky and the lit up mosques and landmarks. Extremely exotic and hypnotic all at the same time. Here’s some pictures. Please note the airplanes in the sky.

 
The Blue Mosque at evening time.

 
Our flight was to leave at 7 a.m. We left at 10:00 a.m. Will miss half the tour of day one. This will require some letter writing and stern talk with the tour operators. Had I not checked the flight status last nite, they would have retrieved us from our apartment at 4 a.m. But because i did check at 11 p.m. last night, I called the company and got the pick up time changed from 4 a.m to 6 a.m.

The fellow is speaking over the plane system and I have no idea what he is saying even when it’s in english. His accent is way thick. Hoping it’s not something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, we just make an unexpected landing. One engine fell off.” Oh, well. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Judging from the fact that no one seems alarmed, I have just kept on blogging.

Istanbul as a reflection here, is beautiful. The mosques, churches, frescos, mosaics, cisterns…the list goes on and on are ancient and beautiful. The people are friendly and helpful. It’s a must-see place if you want to visit a secular muslim country with a rich history. As I said in one of my earlier blogs, it is a city of contradictions.

Just took a peak out the window. Looks like Bonneville Salt Flats or the Great Salt Lake below us. A large expanse of white. But I digress.

Istanbul is built on many hills around the Strait and beyond. It really reminds us of San Francisco in some fashion. Quite beautiful even with the lack of building codes. Most of the old structures have been fitted with braces as columns are leaning. The ayasofya was almost scary in that regard. Huge marble columns on one side lean like the tower of Pisa. Only they are massive support beams inside the structure. Oh, my. I would not be surprised to see them close it one day to either fix it or condemn it. But, what do I know. Just an impression I came away with by a cursory observation.

So, I’m skipping ahead to the end of the day. It’s 2136 in military time and I’m tucked in and ready for some well deserved sleep. In the past few hours this is what has happened. When we arrived at the Kayseri airport, our guide met us and he did not speak a word of english. Because our tour was late, he drove like a crazy man to get us together with the group we were to have been with. He drove in the middle of the road whenever he could. He passed with free abandon. The sights were a blur. I was too busy watching this maniac race toward the finish line. We were to hook up with the group near Cappadocia. As we screeched in to a plaza full of people, he stepped on the brake and we were there. At that point we joined the group and we were placed in the back of a van that held about 16 people. Maybe 2 seats were empty. The van was stifling hot. Much hotter than outside but in their infinite wisdom, the Mercedes people designed this particular van with the inability to open a window. OMG. It was so hot. Our own private sauna.

This van transported us to lunch and then to an underground network of caves. They were incredible. The ceilings were very low and I managed to knock my head on the ceiling 5 times. And it hurt. The people that lived in the region took it upon themselves to carve caves in the for protection. They hid in the caves from enemies. The stone is soft as it is sandstone. Soft unless you hit your head on it, that is. And it goes down, down, down. We only saw 1/10 of one underground city of seventeen. Here’s a link to the right so you can read about it if interested. And here’s some pictures.

 

 

Notice the tall guy in the back. These caves were, well, low-ceilinged.

 
Delighted to be there. It was very cool in temperature. Almost scary.

 
Actually, some people had a place in the tour where they could bail if it was too…well, too. And many in our group did. Rayman and I soldiered on. It was way to interesting…unbelievable to forgo.

After we emerged from the caves, the tour van stopped at a jewelry shop. That’s one of my pet peeves. I don’t like to pay a lot of money to be hustled. So, we ran through that and jumped across the road to where the real interest lay. Here’s some pictures of Pigeon Canyon so named because there were fruit trees planted in the valley and they bred pigeons for a source of fertilizer. The orchards are gone but the birds remain. We saw one white pigeon mate with another while there…no sense of modesty at all.

We then boarded the steaming hot van to travel to a castle. Here it is.

 

Some chap decided to add interest to the scene and make a little money but placing a camel at the site for picture taking purposes. That is where I took a picture of these camel toes. The castle was a “stagecoach” stop for caravans of camels and people making some sort of trek. Impressive.

 

 

 

 

 
Then the hot van delivered us to our hotel. What a dive. We were both hopping mad because we had paid a sizable sum for this tour and 1. we had missed 25% of it and 2. the van was hot 3. the bathroom had mold everywhere and the room was a dump. Oh, an aside. The call to prayer just started. It sounds really good in this land of mystery. The acoustics are great. When one mosque starts the call, the others join in one by one. It’s sort of like row, row, row your boat except the voices aren’t harmonizing and the words are all different. Still, it is very impressive.

But I digress. So, I wrote the company an email with my complaints and demands. No sooner had I sent it from the lobby of this place, the phone rang and it was for me. Negotiations ensued and we ended up in the suite of this place with not one bit of mold, a private tour all day tomorrow, and upgraded hotels for the rest of our tour. And…after suffering buyers remorse on the carpets, I received an email from the carpet sales guy who threw in another rug free gratis for our trouble because he was answering an email I sent him. I complained about his modus operandi in some many words. Well…we were both so happy at the outcomes of my letter writing campaign, that we found a restaurant and preceded to drink and eat ourselves into a state of euphoria given the surrounding views. Here’s some pictures
Our first room above.
Our second room, same cave hotel. From the outside below.
See the people up there?

 

Rayman at the gate of a cave hotel.

Cappadocia is a designated World Heritage Site. There is nothing on earth like it. Or maybe there is….I just haven’t seen it. And it is fabulous. There I go again.

So, it is time to retire in my bed of silk sheets, with the Rayman, and pleasant thoughts of this unusual land. Tomorrow is another day in our Turkish trip and it promises to be a long one culminating in late flights, rides from Izmir to Kad….and a check in at an upgraded room around 0130. That’s 1:30 a.m. I’m exhausted but so high on scenery that I’ll just soldier on with the Rayman to see what’s next here in the land of mystery.

Today after we returned from our carpet buying/Palace touring experience, Kristen burst into our apartment and said, “I really screwed up. I bought the wrong detergent. It was bleach. I’ve ruined my new dress.” OMG. Luckily for us, about the only clothes I had washed were whites and lights. Susie washed one levi shirt of the Rayman’s with their dark clothes today but it came through okay, possibly a bit lighter. So, I was really, really lucky. Not knowing the amount of detergent and because I thought it smelled, well, a little bleachish, I only used about 3 tbsp. of liquid thinking the detergent might include bleach. Many ways to have an adventure…who knew it would involve laundry detergent.

We leave at 4 a.m. tomorrow for our Cappadocia tour.

It’s Saturday morning in Istanbul and has happened everyday since we have arrived, we have been awakened by the seagulls that hang out in our hood. There is actually a seagull nursery on the roof of the building attached to our building. That building doesn’t have as many floors as ours so we get, if you will pardon the pun, a bird’s eye view of the nursery. The thing is, though, is that these seagulls (probably not the accurate name…gull is probably the accurate name) don’t sound like gulls, they sound like monkeys. It’s like living in a rain forest in Africa. Every morning the monkeys talk, or so it seems. And they are loud to the point that they will wake us up whereas the call to prayer an hour before dawn is a distant memory…we sleep right through that.

But I digress. Yesterday we went to the Grand Bazaar. It was so not like what I was expecting. I pictured it more like the spice market. The Grand Bazaar was founded in the first century. And it is a building of grand design and proportion. Fabulous in a word. And huge. And beautiful. Below is a shot of the ceiling. Really, Herrod’s has stiff competition. I actually liked this better because of all the guys trying to hustle you into their stores. Annoying and at the same time fun. I am at a loss to explain it.

 

 

 

 

 

I made of point of announcing before our pilgrimage to the Grand Bazaar that I did not intend to buy anything. This is because there currently is a problem taking place back at the old homestead. In jumping through the hoops of a home sale, it was discovered that our water heater had 1. failed and 2. was leaking. And who discovered this? The buyer’s home inspector. OMG. The bad news was we needed a new water heater and the leaking was causing the carpet to be wet in the hall. The good news was they found it before the water heater moved from the leak phase to the all out flood phase. And the worst part was that we were not there to deal with it. Nancy of Ridgecrest and her sister, Ginger, of Georgia who were there dog sitting Beau…were left in a situation of boiling water to wash dishes. They couldn’t even shower.

Meanwhile, back at the Grand Bazaar, we were there to look at carpets for a friend of Kristen’s (Susie’s daughter) but before we even found the carpet store ( an aside, this is the carpet store that my cousin bought her carpets at a few years ago so there is a relationship with this carpet store owner), I had managed to buy a carpet bag, read soft sided purse. So much for my resolve on not buying anything. It probably wasn’t 10 minutes into the Grand Bazaar that I made my purchase.
Here is the Rayman in the carpet store. When we arrived at the store, tea was offered, a lovely tradition. Carpeted stools were furnished. Conversation ensued. And then the viewing of the carpets began. A symphony of motion. Carpets unfurled. Carpets folded and reversed as they look different from each end. Carpets folded and tossed aside. Sometime the carpets came from the room we were in. Sometimes the carpets were carried in to the store from undisclosed locations. Perhaps the second store nearby? Carpets were measured. Carpets were compared to one another and to a picture of a carpet Kristen’s friend had bought previously that resided on Kristen’s iPhone. Ah, shopping in the digital age for old Turkish carpets. It was quite an education as the carpet store owner really knew his stuff. Carpets hale from regions and tribes and the good ones are made with color from vegetable dye. Then there was the weave. It became apparent to us that you need a trusted source to invest in these magnificent carpets.

When it was decided that more rugs were needed from the warehouse and a trip back to the Grand Bazaar was required tomorrow, the rug store owner whipped out a rug I had mentioned that I liked. And the sales pitch was on. After much hemming and hawing…we decided to have him hold it and let us sleep on it.

We then left the rug store, of which there seemed to be hundreds, and I bought some souvenirs for the doggie sitters and we had an opportunity to see a hookah smoking establishment.

 
Also snapped this picture of the watermelon vendor…when he wasn’t looking. Didn’t want to upset him…in case he didn’t like people photographing him. You never know.

 

 
Then it was back to the apartment for a family get together and some completely interrupted sleep….interrupted by concern and worry of what was happening to our water heater situation.

The new water heater had to be drained and removed, it seems, in order to RIP OUT PART OF THE WALL. OMG. Meanwhile, Nancy and Ginger and Beau had gone to Bakersfield to see a country singer performance that had been on the books for some time. No one was home. Our realtor was handling things. And we were in the dark. How much would all this cost? When would it be done? Which wall? Our minds were racing. Hands were being rung while fans were drying the carpet that we did own at home.

So…that was our bazaar and bizarre day in Istanbul.

Post script. We decided against the carpet. Another thing to move. Our color scheme would require a change. The dog might chew on it. Too many issues. So we are still in possession of $900 that we would have spent for the beautiful Turkish carpet.

Yesterday I hit the wall. Between heat and jet lag and trying to keep up with Ali (a very fast walker)…I was ready to do nothing, nada, zip. What nothing looks likes is first sliding out of the apartment down to the Starbucks, the nicest I’ve ever seen. Here’s the Rayman and Larry headed toward Starbucks.

 

 
We then went back to the apartment and did nothing in particular until early afternoon (3 pm) when we went to a Byzantine church from the 11th century and looked at the incredible mosaics. Here are a few pictures I snapped.

 

 

Here’s a picture of a mosaic man and below it us a close up of the foot in the same mosaic.

 

 

 

 

Information about the church
http://www.choramuseum.com/articles/thomas-whittemore-has-been-chipping-away-plaster-walls-off-for-14-years/

On the way in I took this picture of the outside because it was so architecturally interesting. See below. And then after the viewing we had to wait for a ride to grandma’s house and while waiting I struck up a conversation with a man sitting by the cab pick-up point and I asked him if I could take a picture of him having determined that he spoke english when I bent down to rub a leaf of a plant that looked like basil…but wasn’t…and he then told me it was a flowering plant that would bloom in a month of two from now. The picture follows.

 

 

 

 

 

We were invited to grandma’s for tea. I expected tea and crumpets but it was a full blown meal. Pictures of the event follow. It was quite lovely and the only thing I ate all day except for the gelato cone that I had for lunch. The stuffed bells were fabulous as was all the food. She made a fava bean molded dish that was excellent.

 
And here we are gathered round.

 

 

 
After our meal, we sat around and shared with each other some of the pictures we took. Her home is in the basement of a building which actually is a good place on a hot summer day. She has two windows looking out at sideway level and I decided to try to capture a picture of someone walking by…I have to be honest, a muslim woman in all black. Never could get it right but I did get a shot which I share here.

 
On our way to events, I took these pictures of the wedding dress stores. The particular street had dozens and dozens of these stores. Ironic. Perhaps the muslim women are allowed to get all gussied up for their wedding as it is the last time their skin will be seen except for hands and face and an occasional foot. Don’t know. Just saying.

 
The rides to and fro were amazing. I felt like I was in a car chase scene. In Istanbul the car drivers play a game with the pedestrians and pedestrians play a game with the car drivers. It is called, “let’s see how close I can come to you without killing you outright”. And the car driver goes as fast as possible tooting the horn to warn of impending death or crashes with other vehicles. On the way back Ray was on one side of the backseat, I on the other and Susie in the middle. That’s when she decided to look up on her iPhone the song, “Stuck in the Middle with You” and we sang it out loud with the volume up and windows down…too much fun…as we zipped toward our destination. The Turks who saw us seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. And I snapped these pictures. Oh, and no, we only had tea and Turkish coffee with lunch.
The Rayman and the Roman aqueduct. Below is a big sign on the bridge.

 

 
For the evening, everyone converged at a hotel rooftop restaurant and bar for a drink and a view. I stayed back and worked on my blog. End of a very relaxing day. Cooler too. A breeze picked up and we were all relieved. And it’s cooler today also.

Well, we’re off to the Grand Bazaar. This should net some fine stories!!