And to think I basically had to force myself out of bed today, if only I'd known this day would rival some of the best I've ever had I would have bounded out of bed at full pelt and probably ran out not realizing I was still in my pajamas. Its been such a full on mixed up crazy day, I've had to split it into two entries.

Its was about 9am when I finally left the hotel and walked about half way down to Kusadasi town to check out the cab prices to get to Miletos. It was only eighty euros to got to Miletos and Didyma, so I jumped into one of the cabs and off we went. I'd already been to both places before, and for free when I worked with Fez, but it was on a tour, and well I had tours (unless I'm running them) and this tour was exceptionally bad. I also lost all my photos from Miletos which is one of the most impressive ancient sites I've ever been to.

I sat back in the cab, which had no air conditioning and felt the wind on my face for the best part of an hour before we arrived at the first of the ancient sites, Priene. Hang on, I didn't know this place was part of the deal. Oh well, I suppose I can suffer through this one again too. The site of Priene is pretty damaged I think the whole thing came down in an Earthquake in Christian times. I really didn't have any desire to revisit this place, least of all because it is an Acropolis and that means it is up a giant hill.

I made the trek up the sacred ancient way, to find the city of Priene completely deserted. Of course! The tour out to these sites only runs one day a week, brilliant that means I'm going to have all three basically to myself. Needless to say I enjoyed my visit to Priene much more than I did the last time I was here, now that I had managed to escape the tourist hoards I despise so much.

I wandered through the ancient streets, took pictures in the small theatre and just sat and looked at the temple of Athena, the most impressive part of the site. In fact, I did a lot of that today, just sat and looked and enjoyed being there, without some crass idiot whining about not being by the pool, or hearing some other loud person, speaking in Mandarin.

After I had enough wandering about the ancient city, I went down and found my driver. (Another plus to not being on the tour, I could take as long as I wanted and the driver just sat there and waited for me to be all done with the place) I then made the half hour drive from Priene to Miletos, the city I was paying to see.

As soon as we got there I was reminded of why I had come. The stadium of Miletos, as impressive as the Coliseum in Rome sits, by itself in a deserted field. No fences, no ropes, no paths and no signs telling you where and where not to go. Even though I had seen this mighty structure before I still stood absolutely gob smacked and just looked at it. I then ran towards it and began to try to figure out how to get into it, as last time on the tour I had no time to go in, just to look.

I tried the entrance on the left, of which half the stairs had crumbled away, at this point I had to find foot holds and safe places to put my hands so that I could climb up, by this point I was already quite high up and right on the edge of a huge drop. This is so much better than the Coliseum, I thought.

I finally scrambled up to the top of the ledge I was on and found myself faced with a tunnel. I went into the dark passage and followed it to the light at its end. I came out into the blinding heat on the second tier of the seating looking into the ancient theatre. Again, I had the place basically to myself , except for one family of German tourists, yeah because that's what you want to hear at a place like this. Some stupid brat running around yelling in German.

I moved on from the theatre, which I kept turning around to stare back at and went to have a look at the old Roman bath house. It was funny being inside this ruin after actually being in a working Roman type bath in Budapest. Again, I found a shady spot and sat there and just enjoyed being in this place so far removed from my usual life.

When I was finished in the bath house I walked back to the cab via the newer part of the site, a caravansari built in the 1400's, funny that's considered new here. I went into the gift shop and bought a couple of books. Yes I know books are heavy and hard to post back, but I need something to read on my next journey across Russia. Why not a book on the seven churches of the apocalypse.

I got back into the cab and then we drove for around another hour to the site of Didyma, which is home to the Didymaion, a giant temple to Apollo which was actually part of Miletos at one point. It used to house an Oracle, where people would come to ask questions of their future and a girl hopped up on laurel leaves would give them cryptic answers.

We stopped up the road from the temple and the cab driver let me out and said, You walk, five minutes. Having been here before, of course I knew that, but I didn't say anything as it was the most the driver had said all day. It was a pleasant walk through the little town, with its cobbled streets and red roofs. I reached the ever impressive Didymaion and paid to get in.

I climbed up into the temple and just stared at the size of it. Its almost the size of a football field, surrounded by giant stone walls, built without the aid of cement and whose joints you can't even fit a knife blade between. I spent about an hour in there sitting in the shade before climbing back out and having a look in a few of the shops. I went back and found my driver, actually this time he found me, having found a closer place to park.

The drive back to Kusadasi took over an hour and just sat back in the breeze and listened to my music. The driver, without being asked took me straight back to my hotel where I immediately had lunch, the best yoghurt kebab I'd ever eaten. After lunch I wanted to go for a swim, but where? The pool or the beach? I eventually decided on the pool as I didn't want to have to attack the massive hill to get back up to the hotel. So for the rest of the afternoon I swam and sat by the pool and cooled off after my epic day of adventuring. Little did I know the adventure wasn't even close to over.