Or spelled Seljuk if pronunciation is a small stuff to sweat over. We did sweat over hot soaring reading from the Mercury and made friends with local dogs and plenty of cats... and of course the local friendlys as well.
As I mused previously to friends, it didn't matter what the ongoing debate (academically or otherwise) regarding St. John, it did feel pretty surreal to watch the sunset next to it over the Isa Bey Camii as the latter prepared for the nightly Terawih prayers. A trio of drummers walked past each street singing good wishes of traditional folk songs to usher into the first week of Ramazan.
Between gentle carpet sellers' persuasions, a complimentary Turkish tea from our next door Mehmet who did a wicked chicken shish kebab (he's still confused why we didn't succumb to his free offer for apple flavoured water pipes... hot weather permitting), we exchanged banters on the Australian news back home with a Turkish who had married and lived for over 14 years in Sydney (spoke with a thick accent too). For some unfathomable reason, there are plenty of Australian-Kiwi type of pansiyon offering pretty good valued dorms and rooms yet the biggest throng of visitors are Americans and French.
Anyhow, you can trek the religious route to pay your pilgrim respect to the House of St. Mary but we were torn between the charming wine-producing town of Sirince and Ephesus. The ancient collection of open air Roman relics won the toss of the coin. And if you are reading about it, the house after the great library is not the brothel. It's a rich dude's house that just got mistaken by previous archaeologists for that infamous tag although it made interesting stories about men in toga telling their wives of their newly found interest in reading in the library... only to trek through secret underground passages to visit their mistresses in the "house". Even more surprising are the existing (in very supreme condition I must admit) latrine "thrones" cut out in shape from chunks (no pun) of marble and rocks - with a view of the mountain to ease the passage. Who cares if they had one of the bigger amphitheaters here?
Who knows? But I do know that this make for good imaginative stories and one darn smouldering sunset.
