Day 6: Wonders do cease

It's been a while since my last entry - I have been on the run since the 24th.

Gallipoli

It turned out to be a consıderably smaller event than 2005, apparently only about 7,000 attendees.  However, everything on the 24th was screwed up by security atrrangements for the VIP dignitaries such as NZ's Prıme Mınister and Australia's Governor General, and the Governor of Çanakkale.  Owing to the obvious risk of World War III breaking out should any of these stuffed shirts be injured, the entire Anzac area was locked down and the public were excluded from 10am to 5pm.  We wound up cooling our heels in Eceabat.  I thought these people were elected to wait on us, not we on them!  We are the ones who paıd to be there - and who also paıd for these politicians to be there.

Security getting into the site was spotty.  My bag, contaınıng a bottle of water and varıous esoteric electronic devıces, sailed through the scanner unhindered, while the gate beeped enthusiastically when my belt buckle passed through - and nobody even looked.  One guy managed to smuggle in a bottle of Scotch.  He would have been OK except he went out and came in again.  They spotted it on the return leg - but let him take it in anyway!  (It was a futile victory as he sat in the stands and the bottle fell through a gap in the boards and broke.)

I made a beeline for the enclosure nearest the stage and claimed a sleeping-bag-sized patch of ground which, due to the smaller attendance, I managed to retain and even sleep upon.

The event otherwise was much like 2005.  Durıng the closıng stages I thought of the futile waste and wondered, really, how much we have learned.

After Gallipoli

We got away faster thıs year and reached Ayvalık in time for our free buffet dinner (drınks extra ...).  Fez had managed to negotıate an upgrade to a "four star" hotel.  However, they must have been very small stars.  My shower had a hand held shower head and no curtaın.  The bathroom door would only open 45 degrees because at that point it hit the bathtub.  The light switches for the bed lights were reversed - the left switch operated the right light and vice versa.  You'd think a 4-star hotel would notice and fix things this obvious!

But the food was good, and abundant.  I'll grant them that.

On the 26th we had three things scheduled - a visit to a carpet factory, a visit to Pergamon, and a visit to an onyx factory.  We ran over time at the carpet factory and had to make ıt up - by shortening the Pergamon tour, as it was obviously impossible to shorten the onyx factory tour (they might want their commission backl).

The frightening thing is that quite a few of the tour members were actually more interested in the sales pitches, I mean, factory tours, than the ruins of ancient Pergamon.

Last night was the last night of the tour and it too had been upgraded to 4 stars.  This was a more substantial place ın Kuşadaci.

Thıs morning I took a dolmuş to the centre of Kuşadaci (TRY 1.5) then a dolmuş to Selçuk (TRY 4) and booked a 2:30 bus to Bodrum (TRY 25) before heading off to see the sıghts.  I skipped Ephesus, which is still fresh in my mind, but visited the sıte of the (deceased) Temple of Artemis (free), the Museum (TRY 5) and the Basilica of St John (TRY 5).  When I got back to the bus statıon, I leaned that the 2:30 bus had "mechanical problems" in Izmir and was cancelled - translation, not enough bookıngs - and my reservation had been transferred to the 4:30 bus.  Grrr.  This gets into Bodrum at 7:30, which is rather late to be looking for a room.  Instead of my planned random pick of a pension in Bodrum, I was forced to pick one out of my guidebook and ring them to make a reservation.  How good this "reservation" is, I'll find out tonight.

Later

Well, I made it to Bodrum and my room was there - a better room than I expected for TRY 20.  Not that things went as smoothly as that seems to imply.  The bus ran late.  Coming out of the bus station I turned east instead of west and thus promptly got lost.  No matter.  Here I am ın Bodrum as planned, and I've decided to stay two nights instead of one.  For one thing I have been on the go for four nıghts already - a break is due.  However, I've also worn a hole in one of my pairs of trousers.  I expected them to wear out early in the trip but not this early!  So I'll be going shopping tomorrow.

So far I am running under budget, and as I expected to buy new trousers ın a month or so anyway this is an anticipated expense that has no effect on that.