MOTORHOME TRAVELLERS' DIARY FOR OCTOBER 1997

TURKEY

Barry and Margaret Williamson

01 OCTOBER 1997 TR AKgAKIL CAMPING, TASUCU

First to the Customs Office at Tasucu harbour to check the rules about leaving a vehicle in Turkey whilst visiting Turkish Cyprus. As we'd suspected, it is not possible since we cannot leave Turkey without Rosie and Alf, as they are entered in our passports. We will be disappointed if this restriction prevents us visiting Greek islands such as Rhodes and Kos later on. We did get a glass of Cay each whilst waiting for this information, dispensed by the usual Qayci, circulating with a big round silver tray of tulip-shaped glasses, something we have seen everywhere people work, from offices to workshops.

We continued on Alf through Silifke and inland into the hills, fresher and cooler than the coast, 18 miles and 3,500 ft up through a limestone gorge to the site of the ancient temple-city of Olba-Diocaesarea, at Uzuncaburg (meaning High Tower). The road passed several large tombs, some 2-storeys high, resembling Macedonian royal tombs but above ground, and we climbed through pine forest and tiny hamlets inhabited by medieval figures with goats, chickens and donkeys - we even saw 2 working camels: no tourist attractions here. The columns of the archaeological site were clearly visible before arriving, and their height was astonishing, so used are we to the bases and fallen pillars of Greece.

The Temple of Zeus Olbius, c 300 BC, had 30 pillars with superb Corinthian capitals still in situ, and past the triple-arched city gate stood the Temple of Tyche, c 100 BC. A couple of village women were selling postcards and lace and the baggy-trousered men were gathering for the mosque. The ticket-man also sold drinks and biscuits and had Turkish digestives (oblong!) which came to replace the Greek Papadopolous digestives in our affection. One coach came and went in about 15 minutes, time used by most of the tourists to visit the WC and get a drink, and then we had the site to ourselves, very low key for such a superb place. A Roman theatre was almost hidden from view, set into the hillside and undergrowth, and the High Tower, a massive Hellenic 5-storey square block, stood on the Roman road.

More surprises lay a further 5 km along a back road out of the village, near the hamlet of Olbia, where we found the entrance to a valley of tombs, stretching into the distance, with a substantial arched entry high above and many elaborate burial chambers cut into the sides of the gorge, which had been used as a necropolis for the wealthy through the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. Huge stone sarcophagi with massive lids askew lay here and there, perhaps as left by grave-robbers or earthquakes.

We descended through a rainstorm back to Silifke to shop and eat. A Turkish salad is like a Greek one without the cheese but with more green leaves in it, the chips are superb, hot, fat and fresh from the potato, and we tried spicy minced lamb kebabs as a change from chicken (no pork, of course). The schoolchildren in smart blue uniforms like to practise their English: 'What is your name', 'How old are you', 'How tall are you', and 'Are you married' were the favourite questions of two 11-year-old boys, but what do they do with the answers? School is compulsory from 7-12 years only, though the present government is proposing to extend this by 3 years despite opposition from the peasantry (and the 12 year-olds?)

Finding Tasucu market in progress we bought vegetables and more plums for jam, (but found no oranges for marmalade), then went on to Silifke and up to the Seljuk castle. Towering over the town on a Taurus hill which was the acropolis of ancient Seleucia, it reminded us of the Kastro near Killine. Entry was free (though we bought a drink afterwards at the cafe, where the lad had watched Alf for us). It was deserted, and the views from the walls we scrambled round were superb, clearly showing the loop in the Goksu River with its 3 bridges below and its delta beyond in the haze, out towards the Mediterranean.

The delta was our next goal, marked as a nature reserve on our map, and we eventually found the lane leading out through a village to the shore, where there was a simple fisherman's home, made of mud bricks and thatched with reeds. He appeared, along with 3 geese and 2 dogs, to speak to us, then left us alone to sit

on a couple of boxes and drink a flask of coffee. There weren't many birds to be seen (though we'd met a man with a rifle and cartridge belt, despite notices forbidding hunting), and we mounted Alf to leave. One of the dogs, which had been dozing outside the hut (its master now disappeared), suddenly leapt at us as we set off and managed to nip Margaret's left thigh. She was more shocked and frightened than injured, but it left a big bruise with 4 little puncture marks. Our first dog-bite in 10 years of walking, cycling and biking. Our tetanus and rabies injections are up to date, so no further action was taken except to return to Rosie, bathe it, have lunch, pack up and move on, thinking about dog deterrents for the future. (Josie Dew swears by a 'Dog Dazer' with a high-pitched note?) The coast road heading west was very beautiful, very quiet, clinging to the pine-clad mountain slopes with views of the cliffs and sea, sometimes plunging down into alluvial valleys with crops of pomegranates, bananas, figs and grapes, then climbing steeply again. But Rosie took it all and ran perfectly, with no sign of transmission problems - perhaps fixing the brake lights has cured it (they are linked electronically)?

We continued towards Anamur, stopping about 5 miles before the town at a super campsite on terraces in the forest between the road and the beach run by the General Directorate of Forests, in the shape of a lovely gentle barefoot old man, who hid our Camping Garnet under the potatoes in his office drawer! 73 miles. £5.36 inc elec (1.5 mill).

On Alf through modern Anamur to the ruined Byzantine city of Anamurium, very extensive on a hillside running down to the beach, reminding us of Mystra except that the churches had fallen into ruins rather than surviving as monasteries. It had been a Phoenician settlement, flourishing through to 250 AD under the Romans, and eventually destroyed by Arab armies in the 7thC. The double ramparts climbed impressively and there were literally hundreds of buildings including baths, a theatre, odeon and necropolis in various stages of collapse. After much scrambling through the undergrowth in the warm sun we had our usual chicken kebab lunch in the nearby seaside suburb, then returned towards the campsite, visiting the Crusader Castle of Mamure Kalesi (= restored castle) about a mile before it, on a prominent headland. The Ottomans took it in the 15thC and the crenellated walls and towers have been well preserved, though the inside is a ruin with an incongruous mosque in the middle.

Back at the forest camp we worked hard, M on the dhobi and B removing one of our 2 Top-Boxes, now surplus to requirements, which we left for the custodian. He called round in the early evening with a gift of half a pomegranate and just as we were wondering how to tackle it with a teaspoon there was another knock at the door. Enter Mustafa, a curious Turk who invited himself in and stayed all evening, though conversation was somewhat difficult, limited to the few words at the end of the Lonely Planet guidebook. He showed us how to turn the pomegranate into a dish of pretty pink pearls, insisting that you eat the pips and all, and watched us make plum jam in the microwave (which was to be its last act for the present). We made tea and put on an English video to amuse him, and found he really wanted his photo taken with us (and in particular with Margaret) to show his friends. We discovered he was from Silifke and had a wife and child there, but never learnt what he was doing here - perhaps a forestry worker, but he didn't look like a labourer. Eventually he motioned sleep and disappeared into the night, leaving what he insisted was an address for the photgraphs.

Our road was again steep and twisting, cut into the cliffs at gradients of 10%, 12% and even 15%, one stretch marked as unsuitable for caravans on the map, rising steeply from the sea and dropping to fertile deltas with more bananas, grown in the open on terraces and sold at roadside stalls. The going was very slow, averaging less than 20 miles an hour, sometimes behind impossibly laden and fuming lorries, but magnificent as far as Gazipasa where we had a break by the beach, overlooked by another castle. The road from Alanya to Silifke was only finished in the late 1960's, before which the coast was only accessible by sea or rough tracks. As it became less severe towards Alanya we began to see White Man in his rent-a-jeep, a sign of what lay ahead, but the high-rise resort of Alanya, known as Turkey's Miami, was still a shock. We pulled into the only campsite, just before the town, and found it tiny, cramped and full of long-stay German-speaking outfits. One noisy night was enough. 31 miles, £3.57 inc elec (1 mill or 10 DM).

Drove through Alanya, our first (but not the last) Turkish package resort, which has all but buried the port for the Seljuk capital (inland at Konya), centre of their empire from 11th-13thC AD. We parked on the edge of the town and used Alf to visit the Seljuk sites on the promontory: the fortress, high above, gave dizzy views of the coast and the trip boats visiting the caves in the peninsula, and the ramparts of the ancient city ran impressively down to the shore. The 5-storey octagonal Kizil Kule (Red Tower) of 1226 overlooked the harbour, and we climbed to the battlements for views of the sea and the Seljuk shipyards. We completed our visit by avoiding the gift shops (and even McDonald's), simply buying groceries at MM Migros, then driving on, the coastal road now much busier and more developed. Through Manavgat, a busy commercial town, past the turning for ancient Side, and another 10 miles to a Mocamp between cotton fields behind a petrol station and restaurant. Very peaceful, we are alone again and all is well, except with our microwave oven, which waves but does not micro. 58 miles. £3.57 inc elec (1 mill).

Barry bravely took the microwave oven out of its housing and looked for any obvious faults (none), then reassembled it. The clock, timer, light, etc all work well, it just doesn't heat food. M used the campsite washing machine (what luxury). After lunch visited the Roman site at Side, which has been engulfed by restaurants, carpet shops and hotels serving the package tourists. The extensive ruins made no impression in this setting, resembling an archaeological site in the midst of the Golden Mile! The theatre was closed as unsafe, the Roman Baths had disappeared in a hotel garden, and the two temples, of Athena and Apollo, could hardly have been where Antony and Cleopatra met (in the 2ndC AD!) At least there was no charge. We ignored the abuse of cafe waiters while drinking our thermos flask of coffee by the sea and escaped to the haven of the Mocamp.

The Selge Village Experience or Alf's Revenge! We rode high into the mountains in the Koprulu Kanyon national park, following the Koprulu river, dotted with canoe and rafting centres, for 30 miles to the end of the surfaced road, where a Roman bridge spans the gorge. The track twisted and bumped another 8 miles and 4,000' up to the ruined Roman city of Selge (now the tiny village of Altinkaya), which we finally reached after stopping to squirt foam into Alf's rear tyre as a temporary puncture repair. We carry a spare inner tube, tools and hand-pump, so were fairly confident of fixing it properly in the village. Surrounded by a small crowd of women and children, Barry worked hard and Margaret bought handicrafts to keep them at bay. Then the pump (bought in Greece) broke. The children fetched an ancient foot-pump which also broke after a few puffs. We were told there was no other pump to be found in the village, no phone that worked, no taxi, so we parked Alf in the tea-garden of the wily Bahar family, bought a drink and flagged down the odd passing Safari Jeep for a pump or a lift, all in vain. Finally a village lad (a Bahar nephew) offered to take us down to the bridge in the family car to borrow a pump. We shared the car with his father, sister and 2 friends, dropping the women off half-way down to cut some goat-fodder, which was packed into the back on the return journey! This pump, borrowed from a taxi near the Roman bridge, finally worked, to our relief, though the price (in DMs) for the round trip was even steeper than the track!

The lad did then walk us round the ruins, up to the agora, temples, baths and cisterns, of which little remained, and across to the theatre which had been well preserved until struck by lightning in 1948. What impressed us more was that 1000 people still live among these ancient stones, in arid mountains at an altitude of 1200 m (nearly 4000'), under several feet of snow for 3 months of the year, accessed by a single narrow steep difficult unmade track which is not always passable in winter, living on local wheat and maize (which they make into the hard flat bread we were given), chickens and goats, apples and nuts, and the tourist dollar (and the coaches don't make it up here). There was one mosque, one junior school with one teacher, one Bahar family shop with the most basic provisions at the one cafe with (remarkably) one satellite TV, one dolmus per day out, weather permitting, and no indoor plumbing. The girls told us they work at home in winter, weaving carpets and doing crochet work to sell, but the young men leave at 18 for their compulsory 2 years in the military, after which they marry but many do not return - they go to Side or Antalya to work in the hotels. We admit to being relieved to get back down to the lush coastal strip ourselves on this particular day, returning to find a pair of Swiss cycle-tourists camped near us, also mending a puncture.

Beypet Mocamp lay behind an excellent self-service restaurant and shop, all priced in DM for the coach trips stopping here. We took advantage of this to buy Barry a good pair of cotton shorts for 14 DM and, for Margaret, a leather 'bumbag' purse for only 7 DM (though not fooled by the Reebok logo). Then we drove west, turning briefly inland after a few miles to see the magnificently restored Roman theatre at Aspendos, 2ndC AD and saved from collapse by Ataturk. Still used for classical music and drama in the summer, seating 15,000, its unique feature was the backstage wall, very ornate, with niches for sculptures, which we'd never seen still standing.

This region is ancient Pamphylia, and there was another Roman site further west at Perge with more extensive remains, which we could not access because of roadworks (much needed to widen and improve the main coastal highway). We bypassed the large resort of Antalya and its airport, seeing nowhere to camp, and continued to a lovely forest picnic and camping between the highway and the shore a couple of miles before the dreadful purpose-built resort of Kemer. We shared the site with only one Turkish family in a tent, but were told it's very crowded in summer (though not with Europeans, they are all packaged up the road). We went into Kemer to use a bank and buy bread - which was all it had to offer apart from miles of souvenir and carpet shops and restaurants, with aggressive sales techniques. 77 miles. £2.86 inc elec (800,000).

Set out on Alf through the beautiful Bey Mountains Coastal National Park, past the turnings for the ancient shores of Phaselis and Olimpos, which we ignored as we were low on petrol and the National Park offered all we could want except filling stations. Eventually we ran out and had to hitch a lift for 6 miles to the next garage, in a pick-up with 4 Turkish men who did just that, squeezing M onto the back seat and B out on the back. We borrowed a plastic container, bought a fill of petrol, and stopped the first vehicle going towards Kemer, which was the local bus, to drop us back at a thirsty Alf. We returned the 'can' to the garage and rode wearily home.

Rest day: shopping, cleaning and baking.

Back on Alf to visit the ruins at Phaselis, in a lovely setting round 3 bays. Alexander the Great had taken the ancient Lycian port from the Persians, but the remains are Roman - an aqueduct, theatre, baths, roads - a peaceful place for our coffee until tourists began to arrive on boat trips from Kemer. Another 15 miles through the National Park, with super views of the coast, then down a track for a few more miles to mysterious ancient Olimpos. There was little to see of the city which had been here from the 2ndC BC to Roman times except a couple of huge stone sarcophogi, one belonging to a sea captain, but the sunny walk through the woods along a stream, emerging onto a secluded beach, was lovely.

The Olympians worshipped Vulcan, God of Fire, linked with the nearby Chimaera, an eternal flame springing from the rocks, which was a landmark to ancient mariners. It is still visible, though more impressive at night and requiring another long detour to the next valley along, so we took the guidebook's word for it. Notices on the beach warned of how to avoid disturbing the endangered loggerhead turtles who come ashore from May to September at night to lay their eggs. Both mothers and hatchings are frightened by noise, lights, and any objects in the sand, so the growth of seaside restaurants and discos is just what they don't need. We despaired of their survival unless tourism is ready to yield to environmental concerns, of which there is little sign.

Back on the highway we had an excellent meal at the Olympian Panorama roadside cafe: the chef's speciality of tiny pieces of tender lamb cooked and served in a wok with vegetables, along with our favourite salad and chips. Then we struck camp and Rosie drove us along the road twisting through the mountains we'd come to know well, dropping eventually to a plain of citrus groves and greenhouses. Through Finike (ancient Phoenicus), with a long pebble beach but a sea-smell which didn't invite us to stay, and another 20 miles of narrow winding road (unsuitable for caravans) to Demre (aka Kale), on a fertile river delta, famous for its oranges, Lycian rock tombs and the church of the original St Nicholas. We found a quiet place to park for the night at Cayagzi Beach, just west of the town, and thought the day's action was over. First we bought a drink from the friendly owner of the little cafe we'd parked by, who presented us with a bottle of red wine and insisted we should go home with him to meet his family and sample his mother's lamb kebabs.

We managed to decline without (we hope) offending him, then were taken over by a lovely old chap who had appeared from the little colony of Turkish seaside 'chalets' opposite. Despite speaking only Turkish, he brought us gifts of apples, oranges, lemons, bay leaves and blossom from his trees, then took us across to meet 'madame'. Sitting on their verandah we expected perhaps a glass of Cay, but in addition they proceeded to set out a supper of bean soup, salad, bread and rice, followed by melon and apples and shared it with us quite unbidden. We were quite overwhelmed by such spontaneous hospitality, and hoped the gifts we left them were appropriate (a packet of cigarettes, an English tea towel and a jar of our plum jam!) Conversation was difficult until some neighbours arrived with their English-speaking son, who runs a Pension in Ka§ and told us a bit about the quiet gentle man whose guests we were. A retired fisherman, In his 70's, he lived in Demre but spent the hot summer months here by the sea. Why he wanted to feed us remained a mystery, he asked nothing of us, a remarkable gesture. 67 miles. £1.78 at cafe for drinks/parking.

Into Demre-Kale to visit the Byzantine church of St Nicholas, the real Santa (called Noel Baba in Turkish), who was born in nearby Patara and became Bishop here in the 4thC. His tomb is in the 11thC semi-ruined church, built on the site of the original one, but his remains were taken to Bari by Italian relic-looters in 1087. He left gifts for poor children at Christmas, disguised in a cloak and hood, and dropped bags of coins down the chimneys of girls who could not afford a dowry, becoming the patron saint of children, virgins and sailors (who were saved after praying to him in a shipwreck). Odd to see a Turkish Moslem showing a bus full of Japanese (Buddhists?) round and trying to explain the legends. It's only thankB to Holy Russia that the church still stands.

A mile from modern Demre is the site of Myra, visited by St Paul in 61 AD, with a huge Roman theatre backed by rocky cliffs which have been carved into an astounding honeycomb of earlier Lycian tombs with ornate facades. Sudden heavy rain, with dramatic thunder and lightening, swept everyone away into the cafes and we sheltered alone in the theatre, We laughed as we returned, seeing the camels, 3 adults and a baby, being wrapped, protesting, in outsize plastic macs to keep their saddles and trappings dry for the tourists.

Then a drive along a rough rocky road cutting inland, dropping down to the sea again at Ka§. Olympic Camping was much too muddy to stay but we found a good carpark just out of town, by a beach-side restaurant which was closed, and settled there. Soon a terrific electric storm was raging all round, shaking the ground and our nerve in such an isolated spot. As soon as it eased off we drove back into town - the road out was blocked by a fallen tree struck by lightning just half a mile away and flood water poured down the main street to the harbour. A demand for 2 million TL to park on the quayside (a campsite is normally 1 or 1.5 mill) decided us to move again and we finally slept in a scenic lay-by near the ancient theatre. What a storm! 32 miles. Free night.

A calm sunny morning, a short walk to look at the small theatre, nicely restored and free of charge, then on the road for Fethiye. But the storm had not finished with us - the narrow twisting road was strewn with rocks and boulders washed down the hillside and as we rounded a bend one hit the rear right-hand outer wheel, denting the rim and splitting the tyre. Luckily we'd just passed a service station in Kalkan, so Rosie limped back and found the Lastiki (tyre) man. With Barry's tools and help, he put the spare wheel on and patched the damaged tyre to carry as a spare until we can buy a new one (wishing we could get to mum's garage easily!) The lad gave us glasses of Cay and another customer gave us a purple fig to try, though failed to sell us the box.

Then to Fethiye, and over the mountains to its famous beach at Oludeniz, where the Caravan Club guide led us to believe there were 5 campsites to choose from and the LP Guide described a beautiful peaceful lagoon in the forest. The 8-mile detour and the severe climb and drop over a mountain pass took us to a brash holiday complex with 3 extremely scruffy, noisy, poky campsites. We settled on the last one, got the owner to turn the music off by threatening to leave, and resolved never again to trust the Caravan Club's advice - anyone towing a van here would have to be crazy! 83 miles. £5.35 inc elec (1.5 mill).

Thankful to manoeuvre out of the campsite and to climb the steep hill out of the resort, we drove back into Fethiye (ancient Telmessus), parked by the wholesale market and Turkish Delight Factory, and used Alf to explore the town and its shops. There was a busy harbour, the remains of a Crusader castle and more rock tombs cut into the cliff face from the 4thC BC. The Tomb of Prince Amyntas was the most impressive with 2 Ionic columns and a pediment above a frieze, like a temple facade, the chamber being reached behind a moveable slab of stone. As at Myra, we could only gaze up at them in wonder, access denied to all but mountain goats. The weather was now sunny and dry again and we rode Alf back towards CMCideniz on lovely forested back roads, watching the bee-keepers taking the honeycombs from the hives among the trees. At this time of year they camp in tents in the woods while harvesting, and the bees are very active - Barry helped a frantic woman we met who had some in her hair. We reached the deserted Greek village of Kaya and climbed among its 3500 stone houses, windmill and churches abandoned in the population exchange after the Turkish War of Independence in 1923. It has been preserved from development, barring a couple of restaurants, one of which we used for a freshly charcoal-grilled kebab lunch. Then down rough tracks to the shore for a pot of tea at a little cafe catering to the boats that call, and back to Fethiye to resume our journey.

Our aim was the lake at Koycegiz but darkness fell between Dalaman, where a new airport serves the package holiday industry, and Ortaca and we pulled onto a petrol station and transport cafe forecourt for the night, noticing that one headlight was not working. Ibrahim, the cafe owner, naturally expected our custom so we bought a drink, tomato omelettes and bread, which was about all he had to offer. With a leather hat, round face and figure and speaking good English, he seemed sadly down on his luck, talking of how he used to run a pension in Bodrum. 41 miles. £5.00 for supper/parking.

We drove 10 miles to Koycegiz, a peaceful little town at the top of a beautiful lake which links to the sea, and found Anatolia Camping, a quiet site among trees, lovely but deserted, its gates closed. There was plenty of space by the lake to park and walk round. Only full-day boat trips (at 5 million each) ran down the lake to the ruins at Dalyan and Caunus, including stops for swimming at thermal springs, mud-baths and disturbing the loggerhead turtles, so we were content to watch the kingfishers watching the fish from the lakeside while we ate lunch. Barry replaced the fused left headlamp bulb with our only spare - we rarely drive in the dark but they are essential for flashing in the Turkish Highway Code.

Drove to Gokova Bay, where the road but not us turned off for Marmaris (Turkey's largest yacht marina and charter port, opposite Rhodes) and looked for a place to spend the night in the tiny port of Akyaka before climbing over the Sakar Pass. Marita Kuzey, an American woman picking blackberries, took us over and showed us where to park near her summer cottage. She gave us a pomegranate and quinces from her trees and came in to talk and trade books in the evening. Her Turkish husband is a boat-builder and repairer and wintertime furniture maker. They met while she was crewing on yachts in the Med, post-college. She is now into middle-aged self-sufficiency and gentile anarchy but seemed starved of intelligent conversation. We rejected Jane Austen but took 3 other books and some magazines, and introduced her to P L Fermor, R J Ballantyne's 'The Kindness of Women' and Prof Wunderlich on Crete. She wisely declined Josie Dew's 'Cycling Across America'. An amazing coincidence: one of the books she gave us bore the stamp 'Yacht Gable Moon, G L Pattison' - Geoff, our catamariner, met at Marathopoli in May last year! Not only did she know him well but he'd left (still with Gisella) only 2 days before on his way to Fethiye for the winter. We might have met him there, or here, given a few days either way. It was good to have news of him: he is planning to sail to the States next year, so maybe our paths will cross again. 49 miles. Free night.

We woke to heavy rain and a visit from Marita to warn us about the terrible pass which lay ahead, notorious for accidents in bad weather, which she never drove when wet. Thus encouraged, we had a lovely drive over the Sakar Pass (670 m or 2,200') above the mist on an excellent wide well-graded road, the rain drying out by the time we reached the plateau of Mugla. Rosie is now running well, even on cruise control, and only needs a new spare tyre to be back in perfect condition (apart from the microwave). Roadside stalls were selling local pine-scented honey and walnuts, but displayed no prices and we didn't stop.

At Milas we turned off for the 30-mile sidetrip to Bodrum, opposite Greek Kos, where the Mediterranean meets the Aegean. Bypassing the resort and driving past a 12,000-seater Roman theatre, we came to Gumbet, the bay just west of the town over a windmill-topped hill and found the only campsite, which was 'not really open' (meaning the hot water is cold, the cold water undrinkable and the toilets unusable) but we could stay for a million, which sounds familiar. Margaret tried mixing a quince in the apple ginger-sponge pudding but we decided it did nothing for the flavour, so the rest of Marita's gifts were passed on to the campsite staff. 90 miles. £3.57 inc elec (1 mill).

Back into Bodrum (ancient Halicarnassus) on Alf. The town looks good with its Crusader castle of St Peter between the twin bays, now full of charter yachts and a few sponge fishers' boats. We left some dhobi at a laundry, shopped at the big market for early oranges for marmalade and at the MM Migros for other essentials, and took advantage of the British presence to enjoy Cod'n'Chips at a Chinese Restaurant, sitting on a jetty below the castle watching fish swim past in the sunshine. The 'Cod' was battered fish fingers but very welcome. The Customs Officer confirmed that it was impossible to visit Kos without our vehicles: 'not for a day; not even for an hour.'

The huge, restored castle holds the Museum of Marine Archaeology (which it claims is the largest in the world?). The exhibit of the oldest Mediterranean shipwreck was wonderful - clearly and simply displayed in its own 'Glass Wreck Hall', with some of its cargo of broken glass for recycling in Syria. An American team had raised several coastal cargo ships off Bodrum, from Roman to medieval, and there were some fascinating displays though the chronology was confusing. Bodrum's famous monument was the tomb of King Mausolus, built in 355 BC by his Queen, the origin of the word Mausoleum and one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, until the 15thC AD when the Knights of Rhodes found it, broke it up for building stone for the castle and pirates took the treasures. Herodotus was also born here and he records its early history from 1200 BC when Dorians colonised it, through invasions by the Persians. Later Alexander the Great, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Seljuks, Crusaders and finally the Ottomans controlled the port. Now it's in the unsafe hands of the package-tourist industry.

We made 7 Ib of marmalade in the pressure cooker (which was to set very well) before retracing our route inland to Milas. 10 miles north of Milas we paused for lunch at Euromos, noticing the Corinthian columns of a picturesque Temple of Zeus just visible from the road through the olive groves, built in Hadrian's reign. The slopes around held ruins of the town walls, agora and theatre, all free to explore. We drove on alongside the shore of the large Lake Bafa, once an inlet of the sea, turning west to Didim, ancient Didyma, to see its stupendous Temple of Apollo -one could hardly miss it! This was not a town but a sacred site whose oracle was as important as the one at Delphi, from where the priests came. The original temple from the 5thC BC was destroyed by the Persians, rebuilt by Alexander the Great and then the Romans, on such a huge scale that it was still unfinished when Byzantine Christianity put an end to the pagan practices.

The columns still stand massively round the porch, richly carved, with a pair of tunnels leading down to the inner court where the oracle drank from a sacred well inside the sanctuary before making prophesies. The grounds were thick with column drums and inscribed stones, tumbled by earthquakes, though most of the statues were taken to the British Museum last century except for a striking head of Medusa. As there was nowhere to park off the road we continued up the coast towards Milet, stopping for the night by a simple shack of a fish restaurant which advertised 'Mocamp'. (A car park with toilets). The man was friendly but had no food on offer except fish in his freezer, which we declined. We had a peaceful night overlooking a tiny quay which seemed strangely busy in the dark. Stories we'd heard of smuggling Kurds over to off-shore Greek islands made us wonder exactly how he made a living. 85 miles. £3.57 (1 mill).

We went to offer half a million for parking, were asked for 1.5 mill, and finally agreed on 1 mill. Perhaps we'll accept that you need to haggle yet, though we hate doing it to people who look so poor and ragged. Another 10 miles to the Greco-Roman town of Miletus, which administered the temple at Didyma, with an annual procession to it. It was once a harbour, on a peninsula in the Aegean, but the sea is now 5 miles away across swampy cotton fields in the flood plain of the eponymous River Meander. Peasant women were bent double working to pick the cotton before it blew away, living in plastic tents round the edges of the fields, while the men organised the baling and drove the tractors towing trailers piled high with huge billowing pillows of the stuff.

The ancient site was splendid and we had it to ourselves, wrapped against the early morning wind, climbing to the top of the crumbling theatre topped by a fallen medieval castle. Only from up there did we appreciate the size of the town, important from 700 BC to 700 AD, its streets laid out in a grid system with agoras, baths, a council chamber resembling a small theatre, and harbour monuments, all well labelled. Nearby was an abandoned 15thC Mosque, half-ruined with grass sprouting from its dome like a fuzzy bald head. This was one of our best visits. A 15-mile drive to Priene, where we parked in the square and walked up to the site of a smaller Ancient Greek settlement. It lay on the hillside of a dramatic promontory overlooking the Meander's flood plain, which had once made this an important port in the League of lonion Cities in 300 BC. The small theatre had splendid throne-like seats for dignitaries on the front row and the 5 columns of the lonion Temple of Athena stood up behind it.

The wind had dropped, the sun shone, lunch in our own transport cafe waited, and the road to Kusadasi beckoned. Kusadasi is another holiday resort/marina, opposite the island of Samos, offering a good base for Ephesus and Sel?uk, with 2 adjacent campsites opposite the yacht harbour. We chose the simpler, empty one, which had a reputedly safe water tap so we dumped the suspect water from Bodrum and refilled all tanks. (We'd noticed unpleasant black creatures in the grey water waste, calling for bleach down the drains.) We talked to a passing friendly couple from York, who were abroad for the first time in their 30 years of marriage, visiting their son who teaches English in Izmir, married to a Turkish girl. She showed us how to eat the fruit of the prickly pear cactus growing around the campsite which was good except for the thorns. 49 miles. £4.48 inc elec (1.3 mill).

A domestic day, Margaret cleaning, washing, making chocolate biscuit cake and getting this diary up-to-date (quite a task when it gets behind). The printer is not working, but the words are still going in (a constipated computer?) Barry worked hard outside, where he sealed windows which had leaked in recent storms, cleaned the roof where the top-box used to be, pumped up the air suspension and checked the tyres, steering and front suspension, and bravely changed the fuel filter and water separator, a difficult task, covering himself in diesel but succeeding, eventually, in getting the engine to start again (important, that).

12 miles on Alf led to Ephesus, the Roman capital of the province of Asia, with so many biblical links: St Paul, the Virgin Mary, St John and other legends. Founded by Alexander the Great's General Lysimachos in the 3rdC BC, by the time of Emperor Augustus it was the capital of Asia Minor with a population of 250,000 and a harbour which was moved several times as it began to silt up. The remains are extensive and impressive, though the many tour buses tend to spoil the atmosphere, even on a cool late October day. Many tourists were on shore leave from the cruise ships in Kusadasi harbour, and we could have wished for that to silt up too. The marble-paved colonnaded Arcadian Way (built by Emperor Arcadius, who gave his name to shopping precincts) led from the harbour to the great theatre where St Paul preached (and was imprisoned for his pains), seating 25,000 and still used for festivals. From there the Marble Way took us to the city centre, with its Agora and the stunning 2-storey facade of the Library of Celsus (pictured on the cover of our LP Guide to Turkey and every Tourist Information brochure on Aegean Turkey) which has been carefully restored by the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

Curetes Way led uphill, with rich houses (still being restored), mosaic pavements, remains of fountains and temples, public latrines handy for the Corinthian Temple of Hadrian, and so on up to a smaller theatre/council hall. On the outskirts of the site was the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, the cave where 7 Christian youths hid from Roman persecution and were sealed in by agents of the 3rdC Emperor Decius. The story goes that they were released by an earthquake 2 centuries later and walked back to the (now Christian) city to be hailed as resurrected martyrs. They were eventually buried in the cave and other Byzantine tombs are cut into the rocks there.

Another legend took us 5 miles steeply uphill through the forests above Ephesus to see The Virgin Mary's House' (actually a small church built on its foundations), where Mary was supposedly brought by St John in c 40AD, spent her last years and died. Her tomb has never been found, but the last two Popes have made pilgrimages here and declared it authentic. Muslims also venerate the House of Merymana (Mother Mary). Services are held here on 15 August for the Assumption, and a special Mass is planned to celebrate Jesus' 2000th birthday. The town of Selcuk was the site of another of the 7 Wonders of the World - the Temple of Artemis (the Anatolian fertility goddess with her many egg-like breasts), resembling the temple at Didyma and a place of pilgrimage of which hardly a stone remains, though her statue is in the Museum and copied around the town. We made for Ayasoluk Hill, crowned by a Byzantine-Seljuk citadel (not open, restoration in progress), and wondered at the massive St John Basilica.

He wrote his gospel and died here and the Emperor Justinian erected the church (the 7th largest in Christendom) over his tomb in the 6thC. Earthquakes and stone-robbers reduced it to rubble but an American foundation is busy restoring it, with a long way to go. By now the lure of English food on offer in Kusadasi was too good to resist and we returned to try Partners Cafe's offer of fish, chips, peas, tea, bread and butter. It was all we'd hoped for and more, freshly cooked by Anne, a Sheffield woman who has run it with her husband Norman for 11 years. They return to Yorkshire every winter to visit family and buy supplies (English bacon, sausage, beans, Bisto, custard, HP sauce, etc) to last the next season! She offered only traditional homemade food, snacks on toast, Sunday lunch, etc, with all her menu prices in £££ -ours was £3.50 each. What a good way to end the day. Perhaps we'll go back for breakfast!

Into Kusadasi to shop (stocking up on 750 g tins of Maxwell House which cost less than the Greek Nescafe) and to enquire about ferries from Izmir/Qesme. There is a TML boat from Izmir to Venice once a fortnight in winter (about £550 with Rosie and a cabin) and Greek lines from Cesme to Brindisi once or twice a week (eg Medlink at about £370) but there is nothing direct to Pireus. Cars could go via the Greek island of Chios, but not one as large as Rosie.

Then back to Partners Cafe to try the Full English Breakfast for lunch - orange juice, bacon, egg, fried bread, beans and tomato, toast and marmalade, with a pot of tea, again £3.50 each, again excellent. We met Anne's husband, Norman, who discouraged us from seeking a new spare tyre in Izmir and suggested the local Oto-Lastiki specialist, so we went to the Oto Bazaar. The helpful establishment of Oto Alp rang Izmir and then Istanbul and promised to get the correct Michelin for us for Friday (perhaps) or Monday (guaranteed), so we changed our plans of moving on today and returned to the campsite, to the joy of the 2 cats who had watched us pack away the bowl and biscuits this morning!

Barry eventually persuaded the Starwriter bubble-jet to print again (it had dried up in the heat), so we printed the September diary and wrote to mum, followed by a search for a photocopier and post office. Ku§adasi is still busy with tourists, particularly English, crowding the market, bazaar and souvenir shops which sell everything but calendars (the only thing we happen to be looking for). Margaret, who is becoming a Gatherer (though not a Hunter), picked a bag full of tangerines from a campsite tree, but the lemons were not yet ripe enough.

A morning of cleaning inside and out, and talking to a French-speaking Canadian family from Quebec who had arrived on the site. Alain and Annie Tremblay-Tousignant and their 2 sons, aged 3 and 5, are spending a year touring Europe, Morocco and Turkey, having shipped their VW-camper from Halifax to Le Havre. We gave them some maps and advice for their planned onward route, via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to northern Europe, and they exhausted us with high-speed French conversation practice. Their English was surprisingly halting, Quebec is so intensively French.

After lunch we went to check if our new tyre had arrived (no) and got a new wing mirror for Rosie to replace the one fitted in Edirne, which is starting to turn black. For this we were asked 85p, including 2 glasses of Cay while waiting! (We paid double this and everyone was happy.)

Colder, wetter weather today, so we decided against a visit to Pamukkale, which would be at least 3 hours' drive inland, leaving it for another year. Barry wrote to Gold for headlight bulbs, Margaret used the laundry on the neighbouring campsite and talked to new arrivals, German and Italian. The Italians, from Ancona, regard anywhere south of that in Italy as highly dangerous, controlled by Albanian bandits. We hope this is an exaggeration! The Germans' problem is that their satellite won't work here, and the French Canadians are getting very nervous, unable to decide whether Bulgaria or Italy will be the least dangerous route.

More shopping after lunch - we are starting to feel at home here, it's a good place in which to shelter from Turkey awhile, with 2 good supermarkets and Greek TV from Samos. And then the ultimate treat, we tried the Taj Mahal 'Authentic Indian Cuisine1, a short evening walk from the campsite, and had our best restaurant meal since leaving home. The set menu, at £6 each (expensive for Turkey), began with popadoms and pickles, then a mixed starter (wonderful - onion and meat bhajis, spicy sausage, tandoori chicken bits and salad), followed by a choice of main course (chicken tikka masala) with rice and garlic nan bread, and even coffee and brandy to finish. This was all beautifully served, while sudden rain lashed the harbour and washed along the promenade. A group came in enveloped in plastic macs and ordered fish and chips - they could only have been English! And a slightly inebriated Frenchman with his 2 young sons sat opposite and talked to his mobile phone for most of their meal. Paul Theroux could have written a whole chapter on this one hour. We walked back through the rain and watched the flooding in both Turkey and Greece on the TV news, realising we'd got off quite lightly here. A horrific bus crash, with 48 dead, was also reported.

The clocks were put back an hour last night, making it dark by 5.30 pm, but the rain has passed. We bade the Tremblay-Tousignant family Bon Voyage (which took care of the hour gained, given their verbal energy), and rode Alf to Selcuk to look at the 14thC Isa Bey Mosque, interesting in its re-use of Roman columns, and the Selcuk Museum, with finds from Ephesus and the Temple of Artemis. Another 5 miles into the hills lay §irince, a traditional Greek 19th century hill-village, famous for its wine. We bought a bottle to try and a calendar for Alan. The abandoned Orhtodox church is being restored by the Ohio foundation, but the village is inhabited by resettled Moslems now.

Back in Ku§adasi we had a proper Sunday Dinner at Partners Cafe (home-made soup, roast beef (with Yorkshire Pudding) or chicken, apple crumble) and said goodbye to Anne, who must have made a lot of visitors happy, not least us.

Rosie's new tyre was due after 1 pm (guarantee), so we spent the morning shopping and posting Alan's birthday package. It did not, however, arrive as the delivery had been disrupted by the floods in Istanbul, which we believed, having seen them on television. We agreed a new deadline of Tuesday afternoon. The couple from Ancona (she is actually Dutch, he Italian) demonstrated their electric Tefal mini-washing machine, bought in Holland, and made Margaret jealous.

A last ride along Kusadasi seafront, with a walk across the short causeway to the little 16thC fort on Pigeon Island, from where we watched 2 Greek cruise ships leaving port. We went as far as Ladies Beach, with its hotels and estates of holiday apartments, now becoming a ghost town as the season changes. Rosie's Michelin tyre was again delayed, as the van bringing it from Izmir had brake problems, much to Yakup's embarrassment. He gave us Cay and sympathy but it did come by 5 pm and was an exact match for the front tyres. They fitted it to the spare wheel and gave us gifts (pens, lighters, mats, etc, all marked Pirelli), and charged less than we paid for tyres in Huddersfield last summer. By then it was almost dark so we drove to the museum car park in Selguk. After supper we heard the sound of a band and went out to follow a small procession round the town. There were high-school children in uniform, beating drums and blowing bugles, others carrying a huge Turkish flag horizontally, and the rest of the town's youth carrying flaming torches made from empty tin cans on poles blazing with paraffin. They marched to the town hall and then dispersed. Tomorrow is a civic holiday for Republic Day, anniversary of Ataturk's proclamation in 1923. 30 miles. Free night.

An early start, a sunny day, a splendid empty motorway with a small toll as far as Izmir, which will eventually bypass it. The landscape was hilly, with cottonfields in the valleys, women bent double picking in the chill wind. We skirted the coast through Izmir's traffic, glad that we did not have to stop to search for a new tyre in Turkey's 3rd largest city (even if it was Homer's birthplace). After many miles, we turned off the coastal highway to visit Bergama, Ancient Pergamum, and found an empty campsite in the grounds of a *** hotel. We visited the Kizil Avlu (Red Basilica) in the town: the site of a temple in 2ndC AD to an Egyptian god, then a huge Byzantine basilica, of which high red brick walls remain though the roof has gone, and now containing a mosque in one of the 2 round towers. We left the sites of the Asclepion and the Acropolis to explore tomorrow. 110 miles. £5.08 inc elec (1.5 mill).

A fine and bright day with a wind cold enough to change us into long trousers and coats while riding Alf, first up to the Asclepion, on a low hill above the town's army camp. From 3rdC BC to 1stC AD Pergamum was a rich powerful kingdom, founded by Alexander the Gt's General Lysimachus, and the medical school at the Asclepion became famous. The end of the broad paved Sacred Way from the ancient city now leads to the sanctuary, with temples to Aesclepius and to Telesphorus, the gods of medicine, a sacred fountian (still running water), a small Roman theatre and latrines. We shared the site only with an old dog and a pair of horses and enjoyed climbing through the overgrown underground corridors. The Acropolis was visible on a higher hill beyond the present town. Warmed by a flask of coffee, we rode down through modern Bergama and 3 miles further up a winding road, with super views over the town, the Red Basilica, a dammed reservoir and assorted piles of ancient walls and aqueducts, to reach the Acropolis, topped by the white marble wedding-cake columns of the Temple of Trajan, under reconstruction by the German Archaeological Institute.

There was little remaining of the royal palaces, nor the 2ndC BC library of Eumenes II, who was responsible for the invention of parchment, from animal hides (Pergamen in Latin). His collection began to rival that of Alexandria, so the Egyptians, afraid that it would attract famous scholars away, had cut off the supply of papyrus from the Nile! When the great library of Alexandria was destroyed by fire in Cleopatra's reign, Antony raided Pergamum for her - and we just thought it was the name of Robert Maxwell's publishing house. The 10,000-seater Roman theatre, set into the hillside below the library, was unusually tall and narrow because of the steepness of the land. Below the stage used to be the famous Altar of Zeus (now in a Berlin Museum for a century and the subject of a campaign for its return) and the Middle City, built on terraces down the hill, from the Upper Agora to the Lower. Down in Bergama we had an excellent meal - chicken kebab, braised steak, chips, rice, bread, salad and drinks - for a total of £5 (including tip) and bought hot fresh 10p loaves from the second delivery of the day at the bread kiosk - 2 of the things we will miss about Turkey.

Back at the campsite a British motorbike arrived, carrying Owen and Sue from Norwich, who came in after dark to get warm, talk and have supper with us. He was a geography teacher, she a hairdresser, taking a year out to ride to South Africa, via Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt. They had a tent but took a camping cabin tonight, after a hard cold ride from Istanbul (via the Bandirma ferry). They had got their Customs Garnet through the AA and a double indemnity insurance scheme, to cover 3 x value of bike, but it wasn't valid for Jordan or Egypt so their plans were subject to change. We wonder if they'll make it?

A good drive north, with lunch on the Bay of Edremit looking across to the Greek island of Lesbos. After climbing over a headland to Ezine we passed 2 young men on a tandem, towing a trailer, and so we met Kevin and John from Preston. They were only too pleased to come in for a brew and an hour's break from riding into a head wind and we found they are cycling 'round the world' in a year, with a lot of sponsorship, locally and from a mountain bike magazine and Dawes (who provided the tandem, with which they were having endless trouble). One was a sports teacher, the other a former football player (Bolton Wanderers) and now a coach, but both had given up their jobs for the venture. After 7 weeks on the road they had ridden across western Europe to the Ancona-Patras ferry, then to Pireus for a ferry to Qesme, via Chios. Now they headed for Istanbul and a plane to Delhi (via London, as it was cheaper!) and we gave them our usual advice to take the Bandirma ferry. Their energy and enthusiasm made us wish to be back in the saddle, though not into this wind. We were happy to drive on to Troy, where there was plenty of free parking space by the entrance.

130 miles. Free night.