Turkish Delight

Thessaloniki – Chios, Greece – Cesme – Manisa, Turkey

I’m not sure I’ve ever had Turkish Delight. But it’s a big part of the Narnia books. Edmund, who starts out as kind of a resentful pre-teen, ends up sellling out his siblings based on the queen’s promise of a little bit of this delicacy. 

So I guess I assume it’s good. But there is some mystery about it as well – making it a fitting title for a good, but confusing, day in this, the twenty-third country on our journey. 

Well, a lot has happened since our last report. 

We crossed the Aegean Sea. Beautiful!

We hung out on the island of Chios for the day yesterday. Also beautiful, like my wife.

We took a quick ferry from Chios to Cesme, Turkey. Cesme might be nice, but we had a quick dinner and then jetted out of there – so don’t ask us . . .

It’s at this point that we can really start our post . . .

Last night we were thinking that we would be going to Ephesus – a big Roman ruins some 83 miles south of Cesme. We didn’t think we would be able to bike 83 miles in one day – so our theory was to knock 15 or 20 off last night, still leaving us with sixty-something for today – but it would at least be a manageable number. 

By the time we made it through customs and had dinner, we didn’t leave Cesme until almost 7 p.m. Nonetheless, we figured we would have plenty of time to reach one of two hotels we had identified – one at about 15 miles and the other at about 18. We knew there would be some climbing – but we thought an hour-and-a-half seemed about right, which would have us arriving well before sunset at 8:40. 

There were, unfortunately, two factors that we hadn’t counted on. First, the wind. Pretty strong – and right in our faces – at least to start out. And second, the surface of the road. It was like really rough gravel. In fact, it was really rough gravel; its just that the rough gravel was embedded in asphalt. After riding on it all evening yesterday I think we independently came up with the same name for it: Gravement. An apt name. Because it wouldn’t be very long after riding that stuff that you’d be dead . . .

Anyway, we ended up not arriving at the first hotel until about 8:20 – just as we thought – about 20 minutes before sunset. It was a big place that looked pretty fancy, actually – with a big gate across the entrance. The only problem was that the gate was locked – and there was no sign of life whatsoever . . . 

We didn’t spend a lot of time investigating at that point. Figured we needed to push on to the other hotel before it really got dark. Away we went. But, when we arrived at the second hotel, it too was closed. No one around . . .

So now we go to a restaurant down the street. We figured we would see if they knew of another hotel – or maybe they would know where the owners of the second hotel were – and, if not, maybe they could tell us where we could camp. 

We go in and ask, but nobody knows English. We use Google Translate, but somehow the message seems to be getting lost in the shuffle. Bottom line. Yes, Hotel No. 2 is, indeed, closed. No, they don’t know of any other nearby hotels. No, they definitely don’t know of anyplace we could camp (like, hint, hint, behind the restaurant . . .).

We finally buy some water because we’re going to need it if we do camp – which seems entirely likely because it is now almost completely dark and we have no other options . . .

Day One in Turkey is not really going according to plan . . .

We bike away from the restaurant – somewhat dispirited. 

After a few hundred meters we see a guy – apparently doing some kind of farm work. We type into Google Translate: “We are on bikes and we have no place to stay. Can we camp here?” 

The guy looks at the phone, thinks for about a nanosecond, and points across the “yard” at a big gravel parking area that is strewn with construction stuff. His name is Hassim, and his only question is whether we will stay one or two nights. He tells us that he lives nearby – he points to his house – and says that we can knock on his door anytime if we need anything. 

And then he goes back to driving his tractor around . . .

Pretty nice campsite, actually.

Love generous people like Hassim.

The next morning, over oatmeal that we made in the bus shelter across the street from Hassim’s house, we decide to scrap the Espheseus idea. Getting there would be relatively easy – but the wind is still howling out of the north – meaning that when we turn around to come back we’ll have a miserable time of it. Also, our friends John M and Kang Y just informed us that they will be flying through Istanbul this Friday. (They are kind of permanent ex-pats as John works for the World Bank and their assignment just shifted from Tanzania to Brazil. They’re flying to Portugal to do a crash course in the language before they start.) Also, the reality is that we like ruins, but we’ve kind of seen a lot of Roman ruins at this point . . .

New plan: Put in four relatively big days and then take a ferry from Mudanya (a town on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmara (a little sea connecting the Mediterranean and the Black Sea) to Istanbul on Friday – hopefully in time to have dinner with John and Kang. This plan also avoids the infamously bad traffic heading into Istanbul – because the ferry bypasses all of that . . .

Seems like a win-win.

So we head out . . .

Within an hour we bike past a pool of crystal clear water. We stop and I strip down and jump in. Diana? She doesn’t like to do her swim until she’s done riding; so she watches and takes pictures.

Pretty sure this is what they call a Turkish bath. The water tastes kind of mineral-y. I didn’t drink it or anything, but nonetheless, when I dunked in I could kind of taste it. Probably explains why there’s no algae growth . . . Must be from the salts or minerals in the spring. 

As I’m putting my clothes back on a car pulls up and a guy approaches. 

Ziya. 

I guess he swims in the pool all the time – summer and winter. “It’s icy cold in the summer and hot in the winter.” 

He also drinks the water; he explains that it “cleans your insides.” 

When I ask whether he’s from Izmir, he tells us that he goes to Izmir for dental implants – and he shows us a gap in his teeth. 

We take a picture and ride off. 

But we stop again a few minutes later to buy some water – because we decided not to “clean out our insides” by drinking the bath water . . . As we leave the store, who do we see? Ziya. 

He has some Red Bull he wants to give us . . . 

I guess if we drank that we might actually need the cleansing power of the springs . . .

The rest of the ride takes us through Izmir – a big town on the sea that is full of energy – and then up and over a big pass, before we reach our destination for the day: the town of Manisa. 

By the time we reach Manisa it’s past 6 so we head straight for dinner. We end up finding a little place that is totally family run in the middle of an area that feels like the Turkish version of Little Italy, only before it became LITTLE ITALY: Tourist Destination Extraordinaire. Little restaurants. Cafés. Bakeries. Barbers. 

And it’s pretty obvious that everyone knows everyone. . 

Like most of Turkey that we’ve seen thus far, no one in the place speaks English. They tell us about – or show us – “Turkish Pizza” – this flat-bread stuff with sausage on it. 

Looked great to me. 

But this is where Diana’s minor disability comes in. Or maybe it’s more of a prejudice; a prejudice that holds her back from being the person she really could be. 

Most of us, when we hear the word “pizza” – we kind of light up inside. 

“Now there’s a food I can eat!”

For Diana, it’s kind of the opposite. When she hears the word “pizza” it’s all negative connotations. It’s kind of like this: They say pizza. Diana hears “worm-infested gruel.” 

Imagine the scene with me . . .

We’re both famished. We’re hot and sweaty. We’re tired from a long day of riding. We walk into a restaurant where no one speaks English – but they can say pizza. When they say this word, I light up. I’m like: I’ve reached the promised land! Diana, she recoils. Who would eat this foul vermin . . .?

There’s a brief moment when I thought we were going to have to leave in order to find another place . . . It’s like a Greek tragedy – which I know because, after spending three or four days there, I’m an expert on Greece now . . .

Fortunately, Diana repeats the word “vegetables” enough times – on Google Translate no less – that a big delicious salad appears before we even order. In fact, I’m not sure we ever did order. They just kept bringing us stuff . . .

Two big delicious salads. A pile of fresh arugula with a lemon to squeeze. Turkish pizza – like lots of Turkish pizza. A plate of real pizza, with cheese (which wasn’t as good). And even two shot glasses full of pickled turnip juice – which is, apparently, yet another Turkish specialty. 

All this for, I think, $11.50. 

We couldn’t have a real conversation with the family because of the language barrier. But they were absolutely wonderful people. We learned that the cook and the chief hostess/waitress are married and have a little one-year-old boy. He’s tired and needs to go to bed. 

Anyway, the whole thing was a great experience. 

And we even found a bakery with amazing baklava afterwards . . .

The first day in Turkey? A little uneven becuase of the closed hotels. But between Hassim the camping guy, Ziya the Turkish bath guy, and the pizza restaurant family, I’d have to give this country high marks. 

It also bears noting that the riding was good as well. Nice views of the sea. Beautiful mountain scenery. And the roads today were much better than yesterday’s gravement . . .

Tomorrow the plan is to keep heading toward Istanbul. The only problem is that, so far, we can’t find any hotels or campgrounds that might work. There’s this big gap, with a hotel at 31 miles into the day, and another at 77 – but nothing in between. With the heat (predicted to be 94), some wind against us, and a few more mountain passes it could be kind of a rough day. But I’m at least kind of confident that generous Turkish people will bail us out if we get in trouble…

Tune in next time to see if we made it…

Ps – I know wild boars are a thing, but are wild pigs really worthy of warning signs along the road? What are they going to do? Hog all the food?