Previous Day (Konya)
Destination: Greece & Turkey
Duration: 18 Days 17 Nights (Aug 06~Aug 23, 2012)
Day 5: Aphrodisias & Pamukkale-> Kusadasi
Breakfast in Richmond hotel was great – lots of varieties
and food was delicious! But we had to check out right after breakfast to get on
to our program.
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| Breakfast @ Richmond |
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| Sleeping Doggie outside the Hotel |
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| Goodbye! |
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| The "cotton castle" from afar |
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| Apparently Turkey has one of the highest petrol price |
Our 1st destination of the day was Aphrodisias
- an ancient site which was built near a
marble quarry that was extensively exploited in the Hellenistic and Roman
periods. Funny story about our visit here, our driver actually couldn’t find
the way to Aphrodisias! We had to stop and asked some locals about the route.
It took us around 2 hours to get there.
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| A truck to get into Aphrodisias |
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| Sarcophagus |
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| More Sarcophagus |
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| Beautiful Sculptures |
Aphrodisias was named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess
of love. There were still archeologists working on the site when we were there.
We were 1st treated with a magnificent tetrapylon (monumental
gateway) – then our tour guide showed us a special symbol on the pavement – a symbol
of Christianity. This city was of course built in pagan period (thus Aphrodite
as the God of the city) but during the Christian period, Christian started to
carve some Christian symbol to the place as well.
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| The tomb of the Archaeologist who excavated Aphrodisias under his death |
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| The Tetrapylon |
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| It was gigantic! |
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| The Mark of Christianity - FISH in Greek |
The most amazing structure in Aphrodisias was its
gigantic stadium with a maximum capacity for 30,000 spectators. This stadium
was the best preserved and largest stadium in the Mediterranean. You couldn’t
see this elsewhere. It was simply breathtaking.
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| The photo doesn't do it justice |
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| This was just like less than a quarter of it |
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| A Panoramic View of the Stadium |
We then strolled pass the temple of Aphrodite and the theatre before taking a look at the astounding Sebasteion – this was a replica though
as the original walls were kept inside the museum.
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| Some marble on the floor |
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| Sammy at the Temple of Aphrodite - or what was left of it |
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| Sammy is feeling proud! |
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| Leaving the temple for the odeon |
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| Oh Hello Doggie! |
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| The Odeon is for higher rank politician |
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| This was where they had competition on their sculpture technique |
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| This section was closed for excavation |
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| The common theatre for Aphrodisias |
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| Sebasteion - only for the Emperor's usage |
When we stepped into the museum, one thing that strike us
was everything was every well preserved – I must say even better preserved than
those in Greece. Perhaps this area was less prone to enemy’s attack and the
only enemy was natural disaster such as earthquake.
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| Getting into the museum |
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| Very well preserved sculptures |
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| More sculptures |
Our lunch was at Pamukkale and it had our favourite
sliced chicken kebab – love this!
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| I love this! |
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| Yummy! |
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| Look at the chicken slice kebab!!! *thumbs up* |
After our lunch, we continued to Hierapolis which is
famous with its healing thermal / mineral Baths beautiful snow-white “petrified
waterfalls". It had magnificently preserved Necropolis, the main Street and
Gates, the thermal Baths and Masterpiece Theater.
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| Hierapolis Map |
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| Entering Hierapolis |
Necropolis was the one greeting us once we stepped into
the entrance. We took a shuttle van and got to the middle of Hierapolis (the
place was huge!) where our tour guide showed us the Cleopatra pool aka antique
pool – this was the pool Cleopatra supposedly bathed in thousands of years ago.
According to research, the water in this pool was good for a lot of diseases
but you had to pay 30Lira to soak in it. What a strange concept though – an ancient
site but yet decorated like a theme park. By the way, this was also my 1st
time seeing so many bikini-clad gals walking around an ancient archeological
site! Guys, before you start your nose bleed, think reality! Instead of the
image of those bikini-clad gals in “Piranha 3D” or “Piranha 3DD”, most of the
girls in reality doesn’t look like that. Oops.. did I just break your daydream?
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| Necropolis... city of the Dead |
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| Picture of Theatre from the Van |
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| The 'Theme Park' Entrance |
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| Cleopatra Pool aka Antique Pool - Lots of bikini gals!!! |
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| A shot of the city from Antique pool |
Our tour guide also showed us the free open pool at the
edge of the ‘snow’ mountain – it was white because of the mineral in the water.
We went to take walk in the area and I must say the place was very slippery and
quite dangerous if you walked too near the edge. There were guards blowing
whistle to warn you if you strayed too far.
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| The Public Pool |
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| The White is deceiving.. looks cold but HOT! |
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| "Baked" alive by the Scorching Hot Sun! |
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| Got into the Pool, this is a Must-Try! |
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| The White is definitely NOT Snow... |
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| Crowded! Can you spot more bikini gals? |
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| Sammy was there too! |
Don’t get deceived by all the whiteness - it was definitely
the HOTTEST day of our entire trip, the place was jammed full of people and we
were roasted alive by the scorching sun. At the end we totally surrendered and
hid under the shade. We didn’t even have the energy to move anywhere.
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| A baby walking underneath the hot sun... |
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| I surrender! |
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| Thank God for Water around the place, lots of people simply pour themselves with the cold water. |
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| Random Ruins |
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| Not too sure what building this was, brain was totally fried by the sun to be scrambled egg... |
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| Bye Hierapolis... |
After Hierapolis, 4 of us were consolidated with another
bunch of tourists into a bigger bus for a 3 hour ride to Kusadasi. The weather
was so hot until the air condition in the bus was not enough. It was as if we
were in an oven for the 3 hours. *sweat*
We finally reached Ozcelik Hotel in Kusadasi – a hotel
facing the sea directly. The hotel room was quite old though but thankfully
they had free wifi. We were to stay in this hotel for 3 nights before our
transfer to Izmir Alsancak Port for our cruise.
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| Finally arrived at Ozcelik Hotel @ Kusadasi |
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| The Entrance |
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| View from our balcony |
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| Quite an old hotel I guess |
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| No Bathtub.. *sob* |
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| Swimming Pool at the Hotel |
We walked along the beach and noticed that the sea was
actually quite dirty in that area – much like the beach in Penang before
getting back to the hotel for our dinner – the dinner buffet in Ozcelik had
very limited choice, how I miss Richmond! *cry*
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| The Beach opposite Ozcelik Hotel |
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| Not Interested, we have lots of these in Penang |
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| Random Street along the Beach |
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| Dinner at Ozcelik Hotel |
Next Day (Ephesus)
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