Turkey

So far, the tour has been great and has allowed me to see large parts of Turkey that otherwise would be nearly impossible. It does, however, require plenty of travel days and lots of time in buses going from town to town, seeing the rural and historical parts of Turkey. It is an incredibly large country with such a huge plethora of historical significance. Described as the centre of the world, it connects Europe to Asia to Africa and the Middle East. As a result, it has huge significance for civilisations in ancient history as the perfect location to spur military campaigns, maintain trading routes, and access the oceans. This has meant that the constant battles and fights for possession of such an important piece of land has created a huge amount of important sites and artefacts that I am incredibly eager to see. All the travel time has allowed me to catch up on my reading. I am over halfway on a book about Roman history, and a recurring mention is the incredibly important trading town of Ephasus. Once the 3rd largest city in the Roman Empire, it stood as the trading post for Eastern Countries.

Today, I got to see it for my own eyes. It is incredibly interesting to be able to match the place mentioned throughout my books to the real thing and try to recreate how figures like Alexander the Great or Marcus Aurelius would have seen the town in its hey day. The preserved condition of some of the ruins makes it an incredible walk with less imagination needed than you may think. We began by walking through to the senatorial section where debates and governmental processes took place. Looking like a small amphitheatre, it is dwarfed by the actual amphitheatre in the town that we visit later. We then continued walking, walking past the remnants of statues that would have stood utop small pillars lining the walkways all through the main parts of town. The largest and most significant are transported to museums, but the sheer number that would have been present while it was inhabited means that many are still present in quite good condition. It's peak influence was during the Roman Empire, and so most of the statues and buildings are represented in that style (still with different design to mark different periods of their reign). I was even able to match some of the Latin writing on the monuments to the reason for their creation. Next to the library of Ephasus, which stands in remarkably good condition (obviously after some reconstruction), stood 3 archways, one mentioning Mithradates. Mithradates was a key advisory of the Roman Republic (before it was an empire), and after defeat at the hands of Pompey the Great, this monument was likely constructed. Given that the wars were fought in the East, this city may have been a key node for providing and supplying troops for the war. In fact, it is believed that the defeat of Mithradates and the rest of the Italian towns was the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic. Where outside conflict ensured that Romans were united and aligned in the steadfast defence of their home city, when this threat was no longer present, Romans began to fight amongst themselves. More specifically, the Roman elite began to jostle for power within Rome instead of focusing on outside forces. This became greater and greater until Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and, eventually, asserted himself as a dictator for life.

Finally, we passed the library and headed to the proper amphitheatre that was the highlight of the town. We timed it perfectly to watch the sky turn blue to orange as the sunset over the ruins. It was enourmas and must have been able to fit thousands of people during plays and gladiatorial battles. Unfortunately, the scene (the main building that would have stood behind the stage) is no longer present, but we could still walk behind the stage, where gladiators and actors would have once entered and exited the arena / stage. The ability to access most of the areas of the site makes this such a cool experience, something that would cost you more in places like Italy, if allowed at all. Being able to walk where people walked thousands of years ago it such an amazing feeling. Given how it was now evening, we had to head off, as we had planned to do a traditional rug demonstration and a wine tasting tonight.

We started with the rug demonstration, and although I had originally been much more keen for the wine tasting. The demonstration ended up being far more interesting than I expected, and we all spent a good couple hours being shown different rugs and manufacturing processes. This is mostly because the guy who ran the school was an outgoing and excitable man. To our shock, the man was born and raised in Wollongong, near Sydney. This was a huge shock, but it made it a bit more interesting as he spoke very good English (obviously) and was incredibly excited about rugs. He showed us how they construct the rugs and the processes for extracting the cotton, silk, or wool. The silk process was incredibly interesting, as they get silk worm cocoons, dunk them in water, and rub them with a brush to begin to extract the incredibly fine strands of silk. Then attach them to a hook and begin spinning them all together to get a still incredibly fine silk fabric. This process then recurs a few more times before a strand is thick enough to be used for a rug. He then began to show us the completed rugs, some of which take years to complete. The largest taking 5 years with three women working on it at any one time. He then proceeded to continuously lay out rug after rug, explaining the differences in them, as well as how to identify a quality, legitimate turkish rug. He was so excited and knew so much that it made the experience so much more interesting than I ever expected. The final hour then consisted of walking on all the incredibly soft and beautiful rugs and walking through this display area that was a maze of cool rugs. Some reflect something closer to a painting than a rug. I was a bit stressed as he had held back staff until after 9pm, spent two hours walking up through the rugs and the differences between them, but given most of us are backpackers I didn't think anyone would be buying anything and it may have appeared to be a waste of time. But from the beginning he was sure to not pressure us into buying anything, even as he offered us wine and tea, he did so out of courtesy and being a good host rather than as a salesmen. In the end, one of the people in the group did buy a rug for just over a thousand euros, and it was really cool. It would be a perfect way to remember a great journey through Turkey, but I simply didn't have the funds to make such a purchase.

After this, we were supposed to be heading to a wine tasting, but we ended up running out of time. So, instead, we all went back toward the hotel and grabbed an incredibly cheap kebab. 60 Lira or about $3.5. After this, we all went to bed after a big day.Read more