We've had bad days on this trip before. We've had to endure unnecessary travel fines in Hungary, we've gotten lost a number of times, and I even got food poisoning in Dubrovnik. Yet the horror from those days pales in comparison to our first day in Selcuk.
We traveled from Fethiye to Selcuk by bus, which took about 6 hours. Emerald and Phil had told us about a hotel they stayed in while they were in Selcuk, so we were going to look up that hotel when we got into town. However, the agent at the bus company suggested a different hotel and offered to make a reservation for us, so we went with that option because we weren't quite sure where the other hotel was in the city. It was one of the worst decisions we've made in the last two months. Our first evening in Selcuk was actually fantastic, but I'll talk about that later, now I just want to address the horrors of our first day.
We arranged for a day trip to Pamukkale, which was a 3 hour drive, each way, from Selcuk. After a nice dinner, we turned in early so we could wake up in time for our tour. Everything was fine. At 3:00 am I woke up to go to the bathroom and found that I had a bug bite over my eyebrow. It itched pretty bad, but I didn't think much of it. Then I woke up again at 5:00 am. This time I had a bunch of bug bites all over my body, some of which had swollen into giant welts. I didn't know what was going on, but I grabbed some after-bite cream from my first-aid kit and rubbed it on. The worst part though was that my right eye was really swollen, presumably from the bug bite. When I woke up at 7:30 to get ready for the day, most of my bug bites were gone, except for the one over my eye...and my eye was even more swollen. We figured that I just got bitten by a mosquito. I wasn't about to let my eye ruin our day. It didn't hurt and I could still see, it was just a bit uncomfortable. I loaded up on antihistamines and Advil, and over the course of the day the swelling started going down...a little
Our trip to Pamukkale was absolutely horrible, which is a shame because we were both really looking forward to it. On the drive there, we made several unnecessary stops. First, the tour guide forgot all of the tickets and his lists, so we had to wait for someone to drive them out to us. Then, the bus driver decided he wanted to stop by the bank...it took 25 minutes!
The people on our tour were also insufferable. The guide spoke horrible English and felt the need to repeat himself constantly, even on mundane matters. In addition to the guide, there was an Australian girl who was completely obnoxious and unnecessarily feral. The foul-mouthed Aussie had befriended an equally obnoxious Asian-American guy. To round out the perfect tour group was a middle-management couple from Seattle. Let me give you an example of how moronic they all were. Seattle was at lunch and the Asian asked him why he was in Turkey. Seattle responded that he came for work--for a risk management conference in Istanbul. The Asian, with as much hauter as I've seen anyone muster, said knowingly, "Ah, you work for Pfizer." No, he didn't work for Pfizer, but for some reason the Asian believed that Pfizer is the only company in the US that worries about risk management...the questions and the company only got worse from there.
Following lunch, we finally made it to Pamukkale. In Turkish Pamukkale means "cotton castles." The bedrock of the entire area is limestone, much like the great state of Kentucky. The limestone beneath the surface coupled with the hot springs that rise to the surface creates travertine, a sedimentary rock that's really just a name for limestone deposited by hot springs. The calcium carbonate from the limestone dissolves in the water and, when the water reaches the surface it's "degassed," resulting in the deposition of calcium, in the form of travertine. Over time these travertine deposits have created terraced pools. It's the calcium that gives the travertine pools their stark white color and creates the unique landscape. It's also the white color of these pools that led to the area being called Pamukkale because from a distance it looks like a castle made of cotton atop the hill. If you've ever been to Yellowstone National Park, a similar phenomenon (Though less impressive) has occurred at the Mammoth Hot Springs
Our completely incompetent tour guide only told us two "facts" about Pamukkale: (1) that it's called Pamukkale because there are lots of cotton fields in the surrounding towns and (2) The crazy rock formations and travertines result from sodium hydroxide (lye) in the water. The rest of our tour, and I use that word loosely, consisted of him walking us around the area, pointing to something on the map, telling us what it's called, and telling us we can explore it later during our free time.
The painful tour lasted only 45 minutes, though it seemed like hours, and then we were released to explore. The travertine pools are really cool so Kati and I spent about 40 minutes walking down the hill of cascading pools and watching all of the European girls make fools of themselves by posing in ridiculous looking "model shot" pictures, yelling at their unhappy boyfriends about the quality or angle of the shots. Afterwards we walked through the Hieropolis, the ruins of the ancient Roman city, and saw the bath house that Cleopatra used to use all the time. Finally, after about two hours of exploring, we got on the bus and headed back to Selcuk. While I say that the tour was horrible and I was pretty miserable with my eye, Pamukkale was still pretty amazing and we enjoyed our free time in the pools.
I dreaded getting back to Selcuk, the mosquitos had been so bad the night before that I didn't think I could stand another attack. My swollen right eyelid had gotten a little smaller, although it was still uncomfortable to keep my eye open and I still looked physically deformed. I told Kati that if I got more bug bites that night or if my eye swelled back up that night, we were going to have to call our trip early and head home.
We grabbed dinner at our restaurant hotel, which was very good. Then we walked over to Murat's shop (I'll talk about him and his shop when I talk more about Selcuk next time) to hang out for a little bit. There we met an Aussie who had been living in Selcuk for two years and running a pension. After we got on the subject of my eye, she told us that there aren't any mosquitoes in Selcuk because the city sprays everywhere for them. In fact, she said that in two years she hasn't once been bitten by a mosquito in town. She also told us that my bug bites look an awful lot like...bed bugs.
I struggled to not panic when I heard her tell us we should check our hotel room. We immediately went back and checked the mattress and the sheets...no bugs and no black stains indicative of their presence. Confused, yet reluctantly satisfied, we got ready for bed. Right before bed my paranoia set in again and I decided to do another sweep of the room, a more thorough sweep. I pulled the cloth headboard away from the wall and I saw black spots, not many, and not all over, but there were a lot on the corner near my side of the bed. This discovery prompted further inspection and, when I turned up the seam of the cloth I found one. They're unmistakable, especially when you have a picture of them from Wikipedia in your other hand.
Immediately, we took everything off the floor and the bed and walked downstairs to tell the owner. He seemed concerned and got his mother, it was a family-run pension, to come with him and I showed them the bug...then we found more. Jeff, the owner, picked one up in his hand and examined it while his mother tried squishing them against the back of the headboard. Jeff, translating for his mother, said they were just cockroaches and that there was nothing to worry about. In a true showing of ignorance he said, "You can't kill bed bugs, but my mother killed one of these. They're just cockroaches." Putting aside the fact that finding tons of little cockroaches crawling in your room is disgusting enough, the sheer fact that he thought bed bugs were immortal baffles me.
I told him that I know it's a bed bug, and when he stubbornly refused to believe it, I grabbed my computer to show him a picture. It took him a minute as he compared the picture to the bug crawling around in his hand, then his face went white. Apologizing profusely and assuring us this had never happened before, he moved us to another room, right next door, and sealed up our old room. After a very thorough check of the room and the bed, I reluctantly said it would work. Not 15 minutes later we freaked out, packed up our stuff, and left. The fear was too much. We struck out across the city in an attempt to find Hotel Nazar, the one that Emerald and Phil had recommended. The only problem is that we didn't really know where it was.
Luckily, my good friend Murat saw us walking past his shop with all of our stuff. He asked me where we were going and I quickly relayed our horror story to him. He snagged one of his associates and insisted that he carry our stuff and walk us to the hotel. By the time we arrived, it was 11:30 pm. While we were checking in I heard a very distinct voice from behind us, "Hey guys." It was Nikita, one of the South Africans from our cruise. They were staying in the hotel as well (As were John and Linda as we found out the next morning). The hotel was a bit more expensive, but it was clean and much nicer. After several intensive searches of the room, we laid down to try to sleep, still very paranoid about the situation. I don't think I'll ever be able to stay in a hotel again without thoroughly checking for bed bugs first.
We traveled from Fethiye to Selcuk by bus, which took about 6 hours. Emerald and Phil had told us about a hotel they stayed in while they were in Selcuk, so we were going to look up that hotel when we got into town. However, the agent at the bus company suggested a different hotel and offered to make a reservation for us, so we went with that option because we weren't quite sure where the other hotel was in the city. It was one of the worst decisions we've made in the last two months. Our first evening in Selcuk was actually fantastic, but I'll talk about that later, now I just want to address the horrors of our first day.
We arranged for a day trip to Pamukkale, which was a 3 hour drive, each way, from Selcuk. After a nice dinner, we turned in early so we could wake up in time for our tour. Everything was fine. At 3:00 am I woke up to go to the bathroom and found that I had a bug bite over my eyebrow. It itched pretty bad, but I didn't think much of it. Then I woke up again at 5:00 am. This time I had a bunch of bug bites all over my body, some of which had swollen into giant welts. I didn't know what was going on, but I grabbed some after-bite cream from my first-aid kit and rubbed it on. The worst part though was that my right eye was really swollen, presumably from the bug bite. When I woke up at 7:30 to get ready for the day, most of my bug bites were gone, except for the one over my eye...and my eye was even more swollen. We figured that I just got bitten by a mosquito. I wasn't about to let my eye ruin our day. It didn't hurt and I could still see, it was just a bit uncomfortable. I loaded up on antihistamines and Advil, and over the course of the day the swelling started going down...a little
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| Kati and Me at Pamukkale |
The people on our tour were also insufferable. The guide spoke horrible English and felt the need to repeat himself constantly, even on mundane matters. In addition to the guide, there was an Australian girl who was completely obnoxious and unnecessarily feral. The foul-mouthed Aussie had befriended an equally obnoxious Asian-American guy. To round out the perfect tour group was a middle-management couple from Seattle. Let me give you an example of how moronic they all were. Seattle was at lunch and the Asian asked him why he was in Turkey. Seattle responded that he came for work--for a risk management conference in Istanbul. The Asian, with as much hauter as I've seen anyone muster, said knowingly, "Ah, you work for Pfizer." No, he didn't work for Pfizer, but for some reason the Asian believed that Pfizer is the only company in the US that worries about risk management...the questions and the company only got worse from there.
Following lunch, we finally made it to Pamukkale. In Turkish Pamukkale means "cotton castles." The bedrock of the entire area is limestone, much like the great state of Kentucky. The limestone beneath the surface coupled with the hot springs that rise to the surface creates travertine, a sedimentary rock that's really just a name for limestone deposited by hot springs. The calcium carbonate from the limestone dissolves in the water and, when the water reaches the surface it's "degassed," resulting in the deposition of calcium, in the form of travertine. Over time these travertine deposits have created terraced pools. It's the calcium that gives the travertine pools their stark white color and creates the unique landscape. It's also the white color of these pools that led to the area being called Pamukkale because from a distance it looks like a castle made of cotton atop the hill. If you've ever been to Yellowstone National Park, a similar phenomenon (Though less impressive) has occurred at the Mammoth Hot Springs
Our completely incompetent tour guide only told us two "facts" about Pamukkale: (1) that it's called Pamukkale because there are lots of cotton fields in the surrounding towns and (2) The crazy rock formations and travertines result from sodium hydroxide (lye) in the water. The rest of our tour, and I use that word loosely, consisted of him walking us around the area, pointing to something on the map, telling us what it's called, and telling us we can explore it later during our free time.
The painful tour lasted only 45 minutes, though it seemed like hours, and then we were released to explore. The travertine pools are really cool so Kati and I spent about 40 minutes walking down the hill of cascading pools and watching all of the European girls make fools of themselves by posing in ridiculous looking "model shot" pictures, yelling at their unhappy boyfriends about the quality or angle of the shots. Afterwards we walked through the Hieropolis, the ruins of the ancient Roman city, and saw the bath house that Cleopatra used to use all the time. Finally, after about two hours of exploring, we got on the bus and headed back to Selcuk. While I say that the tour was horrible and I was pretty miserable with my eye, Pamukkale was still pretty amazing and we enjoyed our free time in the pools.
**************************************
I dreaded getting back to Selcuk, the mosquitos had been so bad the night before that I didn't think I could stand another attack. My swollen right eyelid had gotten a little smaller, although it was still uncomfortable to keep my eye open and I still looked physically deformed. I told Kati that if I got more bug bites that night or if my eye swelled back up that night, we were going to have to call our trip early and head home.
We grabbed dinner at our restaurant hotel, which was very good. Then we walked over to Murat's shop (I'll talk about him and his shop when I talk more about Selcuk next time) to hang out for a little bit. There we met an Aussie who had been living in Selcuk for two years and running a pension. After we got on the subject of my eye, she told us that there aren't any mosquitoes in Selcuk because the city sprays everywhere for them. In fact, she said that in two years she hasn't once been bitten by a mosquito in town. She also told us that my bug bites look an awful lot like...bed bugs.
I struggled to not panic when I heard her tell us we should check our hotel room. We immediately went back and checked the mattress and the sheets...no bugs and no black stains indicative of their presence. Confused, yet reluctantly satisfied, we got ready for bed. Right before bed my paranoia set in again and I decided to do another sweep of the room, a more thorough sweep. I pulled the cloth headboard away from the wall and I saw black spots, not many, and not all over, but there were a lot on the corner near my side of the bed. This discovery prompted further inspection and, when I turned up the seam of the cloth I found one. They're unmistakable, especially when you have a picture of them from Wikipedia in your other hand.
Immediately, we took everything off the floor and the bed and walked downstairs to tell the owner. He seemed concerned and got his mother, it was a family-run pension, to come with him and I showed them the bug...then we found more. Jeff, the owner, picked one up in his hand and examined it while his mother tried squishing them against the back of the headboard. Jeff, translating for his mother, said they were just cockroaches and that there was nothing to worry about. In a true showing of ignorance he said, "You can't kill bed bugs, but my mother killed one of these. They're just cockroaches." Putting aside the fact that finding tons of little cockroaches crawling in your room is disgusting enough, the sheer fact that he thought bed bugs were immortal baffles me.
I told him that I know it's a bed bug, and when he stubbornly refused to believe it, I grabbed my computer to show him a picture. It took him a minute as he compared the picture to the bug crawling around in his hand, then his face went white. Apologizing profusely and assuring us this had never happened before, he moved us to another room, right next door, and sealed up our old room. After a very thorough check of the room and the bed, I reluctantly said it would work. Not 15 minutes later we freaked out, packed up our stuff, and left. The fear was too much. We struck out across the city in an attempt to find Hotel Nazar, the one that Emerald and Phil had recommended. The only problem is that we didn't really know where it was.
Luckily, my good friend Murat saw us walking past his shop with all of our stuff. He asked me where we were going and I quickly relayed our horror story to him. He snagged one of his associates and insisted that he carry our stuff and walk us to the hotel. By the time we arrived, it was 11:30 pm. While we were checking in I heard a very distinct voice from behind us, "Hey guys." It was Nikita, one of the South Africans from our cruise. They were staying in the hotel as well (As were John and Linda as we found out the next morning). The hotel was a bit more expensive, but it was clean and much nicer. After several intensive searches of the room, we laid down to try to sleep, still very paranoid about the situation. I don't think I'll ever be able to stay in a hotel again without thoroughly checking for bed bugs first.
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