| This morning we had a plan in mind: see Bodrum, then catch the 10:30 am bus to Pamukkale. Bodrum, once called Halicarnassus, is famous for having an Ancient Wonder of the world - the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The world has never known better marketing than this 'Ancient Wonders' thing. Egypt's Great Pyramids is the only Wonder left standing, the others are rubble or gone without a trace. Like good tourists, loyal to our tourist's creed to 'see everything' (and as American tourists, to buy a t-shirt if available), we went to see Bodrum's Ancient Wonder. Turned out we were the only people interested this morning; we were lucky to have the place to ourselves, along with some chickens that were allowed to roam around as well. The chickens detracted from the Wonder's aura, which was too bad because there wasn't much aura left, just a few large granite blocks lying around. The mere fact that we paid a few dollars to see these idle stones, rather than doing it at a quarry or construction site for free, attests to the powerful marketing feat accomplished by the people behind the Ancient Wonders list. Maybe too much siteseeing has made us cynical, so recharged by a desire to see more of Turkey, we caught a bus to Pamukkale. The Turkish countryside is beautiful: a hilly, rocky land that surprisingly is often covered by trees; Turkey is much more forested than its neighbor, Greece. The towns, like their European counterparts, have a neat logic - houses and streets radiating from a central religious edifice, except in Turkey this edifice is a mosque rather than a Christian church, and a minaret instead of a steeple dominates the skyline. Our day's destination, Pamukkale, didn't disappoint us. This place is famous for thermal hot springs and curious white cliffs, created from calcium deposits bubbling out of the hot springs, that look like ski slopes in the middle of an arid landscape. |
