day 4: pamukkale, the reason we're in turkey!

we woke up all buzzing with excitement, coz we'll be going to pamukkale! one more item to cross off my bucket list! ok, i don't really have a bucket list. just saying it for dramatic effects :P


the hotel breakfast was nothing great, so again, no photos taken. we checked-out and were picked up from the hotel by our driver at 8am. the bus ride from kusadasi to pamukkale took about 3 hours, going through denizli with their vast landscape of strawberry and pomegranate plantations...

...and the snow-capped mount ararat in the distance

everyone was excited when we caught our first glimpse of the white hardened calcium on the sides of the hill...

but first, we had to do the practical like eat lunch first! it's another buffet of arabic fare in the town of pamukkale, included in the tour package. oh, did i mention that i love their rice? slightly sticky and tasted something like calrose rice...

after lunch, we're finally there! but before getting to the calcium terraces, we need to listen to our guide telling us about the site, where the ancient romans have built a city around it due to its natural spring source bla bla bla... which was rather frustrating, coz we just couldn't wait to get to the calcium terraces!! shaddup and let's get going already!

 site of the ancient roman school...

the main road of the ancient hierapolis, found and excavated less than 6 months before!

finally, we got to the highlight of our trip! here is the source of the natural spring, known as the cleopatra pool (tho' we were quite doubtful if cleopatra was really here!). this pool is said to posses rejuvenating effects, something like the pool of eternal youth lar, and we had to pay 30 turkish lira (≈ RM60) if we wish to go for a dip here. 

not exactly clean like a swimming pool and lovely lily and i had some initial qualms about dipping ourselves in a pool full of green algae and other natural stuff! so city slickers of us, right? :P

but we went ahead anyway, coz we've come all this way here. and we'd have seen the calcium terraces of pamukkale, so even if we were to die from some weird bacteria in the dirty water, it would have been worth it. lol!

anyway, after dipping in the pool and getting all wrinkly, we decided it's time to go out to the calcium terraces. we can't step onto the white calcium with our shoes on, so after much discussion, we decided to leave our shoes in our lockers (included in the 30 lira payment for cleopatra pool), instead of leaving it out in the open at the top of the terraces. but that means we had to walk barefoot on the pebbles and sand, as the terraces are about 200 metres away from the cleopatra pool. so for those of you who're planning a trip there, remember to bring slippers! and a big towel, coz...

...we also had to walk half naked in our swim wears! luckily i didn't decide to wear a bikini! :P

up-close shot of the dried up calcium from the natural spring water. but they can't be completely dried, coz then they'll turn brown...

ahem... now THIS shot would look good if i'd decided to wear a bikini, right? :P 

the parts with water... 

...parts without water. now they have a water management system, where they control the water flow to different parts of the terrace in turn, to let the calcium sediment a chance to harden so that they don't erode away from being stepped on by so many tourists

muddy calcium sludge... 

my favourite pic from the trip! natural infinity pool... 

after frolicking in the hot turkish sun for nearly one hour, we thought we'd better get back to the pool for another soak. luckily the tickets that we paid for were not for one-entry only. there's lovely lily getting some water back massage in the pool...

as we were going on to capadocia from here, we didn't have to stick to the schedule of the rest of our tour group, who were going back to kusadasi at 4pm. so we were able to take our own sweet time in making the most out of our 30 lira, soaking in the cleopatra pool until we're all wrinkly and sun-burnt (coz tho' the air is crisp, it was pretty sunny), and with blue-black bruises on our legs, as the floor of the pool is full of big boulders, marble columns, stones and pebbles - easy for us to loose our balance and scrape and knock ourselves!

our tour guide had showed us the way to pamukkale town, which is just a walk down the calcium terraces. so just before the cleopatra pool closes at 5pm, we got up, took a quick cold rinse at the shower (the water was really icy cold - we were literally jogging in place under the shower!!) and got dressed. i guess we didn't think this through enough, coz we didn't bring any shower gel, shampoo nor skin lotion with us. so after all those exposure to the sun and the calcium in the water, our skin felt all dry and icky.

walking back down the calcium terraces, this time carrying our shoes with us...

in pamukkale town, we quickly went to the tour office where we had deposited our luggage earlier and got out our toiletries bags to try to salvage our skin as best we could. still, we've not taken any proper shower, so we were still feeling icky.

after making sure that our transfer to our next destination has been arranged and everything is in order, we decided to look for dinner. as this is already my 4th day in turkey, i'm quite ready to have some other food that's NOT turkish. so lovely lily and i decided to split up and have our dinners on our own, since it's really a very small town and there's not much chance that we'd get lost.

i decided to try this japanese shop just next to the tour agent's office... which served korean food. here's my bibimbab... and they were not expensive at all (tho' i've forgotten the actual price now)!

inu-chan, the big friendly goldie belonging to the japanese lady who ran the restaurant... "inu" means "dog" in japanese, so its name is something like "little dog". how cute!

after dinner, i went to look for lovely lily (who was still eating her turkish kebab) and we took a walk around town, popping into shops etc. then we went back to sit around at the tour agent's office before transferring our luggage to a small b&b from where our van will pick us up. they have free wi-fi there, so we spent our time surfing the web and updating facebook (only me, as lovely lily doesn't have fb) before the van's departure.

we were brought to the denizli bus station, where we had to sit around for some 2 hours before our bus finally arrived, inhaling all the cigarette smoke around us. i tell you, turkey must have the largest smoker population in the whole wide world! everyone seems to be smoking, from old men and women, to young teenage boys and girls barely of legal age! we were watching in disgust at a young couple saying their goodbyes. both took a long drag from their ciggies and even before they exhale the smoke, they were already locking lips with each other! urgh!

oh, they're also very liberal and open, for an islamic country, with plenty of PDAs around - must be a european influence. anyway, in our itinerary, it was stated that we will depart for capadocia at 9 or 10pm. but our bus only arrived at the bus station at 11pm and departed at 11.30pm. so you can just imagine how many times we changed our seats to get away from them smoke!

but our bus was quite alright lar. it's an express bus, air-conditioned (thank god, no smoking!) and they even served us hot drinks and cake! we were on an overnight bus to capadocia, a journey of about 8 hours. so i declined the coffee/tea, coz i intended to go straight to sleep and be fresh and ready for the next day's tour. (was also looking forward to a nice warm shower when we arrive at our hotel in the morning!)