Izmir and Selçuk

Before breakfast and then pressing on to Selçuk, there were a couple of things I wanted to experience in Izmir. The first was to ride the metro. Here I'm just outside a station; you can see the signs.

And this is a shot inside the station. Security was quite prominent. I wondered if they expected trouble.


When I bought a ticket from a machine, a Turkish man was kind enough to help me, using signs and improvised language.

This is the clock tower of European design.

The other sight in Konak Square was the mosque with its beautiful blue tiles. I was tempted to take a look at the markets but decided against it. I was a bit tired of cities at that moment.


The hotel seemed to mostly cater for commercial travellers to judge from the people in the dining room. Again, time was wasted being shuttled to the otogar at the edge of the city. I made it to the bus with 10 minutes to spare. This trip seemed more expensive. Perhaps the highway toll had something to do with it.


At Selçuk I got less hassle from the touts than I expected. I searched for the Pansion Yayla in the rain. A cyclist helped me locate it in a home where an old lady sat me down in the living room and offered me some cold watermelon. Eventually the daughter came back and explained that the Pansion had been closed for a few years now, the guide was out of date, but she would drive me to some friends of hers who ran a hotel. And being a seller of carpets now, she tried to interest me. Of course.


The hotel turned out to be the Nazar which was in the guide also and very neat. I got a small room with bath for 8 million Turkish Lira. Turkey was the first country where I could feel like a millionaire due to their hyperinflated currency. At that time the exchange rate was about a million TL for 4 AUD. (In 2005, Turkey issued a new Lira, dropping 6 zeros.) Unfortunately the room had neither air-con nor fan, so I had to close all the windows in the daytime to keep the hot air out.

For lunch I found a lokanta (restaurant) that served a decent beef stew with bread. I picked up ½ kg of cherries on the way back. I siestaed the afternoon away, then showered and walked to the ruins of the Basilica of St. John. Storks were nesting on top of the walls. A man there tried to sell me "antique coins". I declined. They were either fake, or I was risking jail exporting antiquities without a permit on departure. And anyway I have no desires to be a collector. A little girl there tried her English begging line on me: Hello money, hello candy.


After an undistinguished dinner at the Ephesus Restaurant, I bought a bag of apricots from a shop. On the way back from checking the timetables at the bus station, a shopkeeper struck up a conversation with me. It turned out that he had lived in Australia and stayed in his brother's place in Seaforth. He had come back to Turkey to open a business. Oh and did I want to buy a carpet?

It was a warm and still evening, there were no breezes like in Istanbul. Noisy motorcycles and the occasional car with a loud stereo went past. I cooled off on the hotel terrace where there was a distant view of the fortress. Moments of ease and repose such as that breezy evening on the terrace of the Empress Zoe Hotel were rare and to be savoured. How to just be and not always act, that was the question. And also how to travel, and indeed live, with less encumbrances.