Kusadasi-Ephesus tour

The mind won over the tired sleepy body and thankfully so because the early morning 5K run into the town of Kusadasi was the only opportunity to enjoy and appreciate it on a perfectly crisp sunny day. With Digish as the running buddy, the directional challenges were off the table allowing me to enjoy the run even more! Another breakfast overlooking the Aegean sea after the morning run was like food for the soul.

36 hours in the country were enough to make a generalization about its kind and warm-hearted hospitable people. Whether it was Yeniz who walked us all the way to Leila for our night out when the bus couldn’t go any further due to a road closure, or the Leila staff who came to see us off to our taxi after dinner and the LaVista hotel staff performing a water pouring ceremony as our bus left symbolizing, “You leave like water and come back like water”, the hospitality theme was on a consistent repeat mode. Gestures like these touch the heart and make you even more grateful for being able to visit the country and get a chance to interact with its wonderful people.

The first stop was the Populer leather “experience”, starting with a very entertaining fashion show with models displaying the chic looking collection of reversible leather jackets. With Chintan, Parishi, Anya and Neha being recruited as models on the ramp the show became a tad more fun! The stage was set well for the next step of the retail experience where multiple staff members followed us around charming everyone with their excellent marketing gimmicks while different leather jackets were tried on. Some of our friends were completely sold on the discounts being offered for the $500+ jackets and were close to making the purchase. Some unknown instinct made me look up the company while waiting in the courtyard, the negative reviews on TripAdvisor demanded alerting them ⛔️ before making such expensive purchases with shady quality and I ran in to warn them of these. The timing couldn’t have been more interesting as they were about to settle the payments and pulled back fleeing the scene of the disgruntled staff who had worked so hard and so smart to up-sell the highly marked up stock.

The second stop on our tour was the house of Virgin Mary where she lived until ascending into heaven. It was atop a hill in the a beautiful forest like setting. The kids and adults enjoyed partaking in the rituals like drinking from the fountains of health, wealth, love and fertility and making wishes which are meant to come true.

Today’s lunch was definitely a highlight and an experience in itself, the setting was like a village with tables and booths offering options to sit on the floor, the place reminding us of Vishala restaurant in Ahmedabad. Watching a couple of women effortlessly rolling giant Turkish paratha and stuffing them with spinach, cheese was delightful and made the meal all the more enjoyable. The salted foam topped lassi in clay pots tasted exactly like it does back home in India. It’s amazing to notice the similarities in the two countries including the presence of Squat-style Indian toilets! Chocolate stuffed parathas for dessert kept some of us going for more stuffing us up beyond the brim.

The Ephesus city excavated over the past century was the 3rd site of an entire city of Ephesus moving and it also moved to a 4th site thereafter. The extent of this 2000 year old Roman city which was home to over 250,000 people is unfathomable as even with only 12% of the city excavated it felt very expansive. It was the 3rd largest Roman Empire, and while I wish I retained enough historical details to include in this narration my knowledge was limited by the description from Yeniz with multiple picture interruptions. Parishi and Kahan on the other hand appeared half as attentive but way more informed on the rich history of the Roman and Greek gods, the mythology, the stories and the confluence of those cultures based on their excitement in supplementing some of that information to Yeniz’s tour. The excavated ruins have been reconstructed like a 3D jigsaw puzzle to build what would have been a sprawling city back in its hey day with the running water systems, public Roman baths which served as a hang-out place for the elite class, the multiple public open air toilets 🚽 lined up for men to do a communal daily defecation sharing sponges 🧽 on a stick after as wipes 🧻. This line up couldn’t help one think that the Roman dudes really didn’t care about minding their own business after all!

The Romans believed in nothing short of grandeur which was evident in the massive ornate marble structures, over the top library, theater which could seat 25,000 people together for a show and large “Agoras” (market place) where the trading of goods happened. History is mesmerizing to say the least and makes you want to get transported back in time to that thriving civilization with its engineering marvels despite the lack of modern infrastructure, communication tools, print or the internet. The primary obstacle to longevity and quality of life seemed to be disease as rampant malaria was the primary reason of Ephesus to have moved multiple times in the course of its history. The temple of Artemis only has a column remaining from what used to be called the 7th wonder of the ancient world. It was a quick stop before visiting the olive oil and Turkish sweet shop which was squeezed in due to an hour delay of our flight to Keyseri.

The check-in at the airport for our SunExpress flight was smooth, we got some time to unwind and our devices got time to charge up before a smooth short flight to our next leg of the trip- Cappadocia after the good-bye hugs with Yeniz, who although we met for only 2 days felt more like a close friend than a tour guide.