Bursa & Selcuk - 27 April

Day 30

After a post ferry bus trip we arrived in Bursa at lunch time. (Artic Hotel)

Bursa is famous for creating iskender so we had that for lunch then wandered around the market and a shopping centre, unable to find why people said it was their favourite place.

That evening we had dinner at a locals house. Morat was very cheeky and funny and his big personality high lighted the lack of one in our Intepid tour leader! He also spoke better English and seemed more knowledgeable.

After dinner we went to a cafe for some local music as they all jam in a room there. Then went to a mosque where we saw the whirling dervishes.

These guys were incredible and gave you tingles up the spine - not like the tacky one on the nile cruise at all!

There were also men singing and playing the music and it felt like we were witnessing a group trance. We all loved it!

Day 31

We left early on the 'luxury' bus for Selcuk. The air conditioning was broken so sweated in the windowless bus all day with 31 degrees outside! I did have a diva moment here when they cut our break time short and didn't have time to get anything before getting back on the bus, 'All I wanted was an icecream and a water!'

Susie ended up having to give me her water to placate me!

Eventually we got to Selcuk and somewhere just before that they got the air con working.

We stayed at Dreams Guesthouse and loved Selcuk as its a quaint pretty town.

We did a walk around taking in the last standing pillar of the temple of artemis. We had a delicious dinner where I had a mixed meze plate and we shared a bottle of rose. (Or Roze here).

Day 32

We left at 8.30 to see the ruins of Ephesus. Another very warm day so it was hard to appreciate all. I found some respite paying extra to see the terraced houses which were under cover and definitely worth a look.

We were all ruined out though so have lots of great photos of the many cats we saw lying on them!

After lunch we had an afternoon at the hamam. Much to our suprise it was men who were washing and massaging us!

They were typical turkish - hairy, fat, balding and a frightening sight with bare chest and just the wrap around their wastes

Waiting downstairs for my massage I looked up to see Susie just finishing hers, wrapped in a towel with a balding, moustached, hairy chested naked looking man smiling at her - it really did look like it could be a scene out of a 70s porn movie!

He gave a great massage though!

Later that afternoon we went to Sirince. We looked around the shops when we arrived and I got talked into sitting at a shop and having a wine with 2 local brothers who were drinking raki. They said they do this every afternoon and were good conversation.

It was nearly time to go meet the group so I went with one brother next door to his shop. I didn't want anything but he offered to come pick me up the following night so I could come back for a drink with him. I told him we were leaving the following day and so he said how about you get a cab up here after your group takes you back to your hotel and I'll drop you back in the morning.

Once again I politely declined and left to get back to my group quickly ... !

We did wine tasting of the fruit wines - I didn't like them!

Then had dinner nearby.

Then had a random stop off at villa of dreams which was owned by the brother of our hotel, Dreams pension.

We took a couple of photos then sat by the fire which was poolside, as it was very cold!

By this point we were tired and cranky as still haven't caught up on sleep since Gallipoli!

Finally after 45 minutes of sitting and no drinks offered to us we were shuttled back to our hotel.

Day 32

After breakfast we caught a train to Pamukkale.