quite a famous hotel with pictures of various famous movie stars with the owner on the walls.
Certainly I would recommend this hotel in Kusadasi
Travel
Simple fare
Travelled by local bus to the national park near Kusadasi 20 km. I must research the Muslim equivalent of kissing the earth upon safe arrival at one’s destination. As of this evening I am in his debt thrice over.
The National Park near Kusadasi is a gem of crystal clear turquoise waters,I hope a foretaste of my Great Big Blue Swim beginning in a little more than a week.
I walked along a Canyon some 13km round trip ascending, according to my iPhone, some 47 storeys of a skyscraper. Then several swims before the unnerving bus back and a delightful Turkish Pide just down the road from my hotel for evening meal.
“Third Beach”
the Canyon in the National Park
panorama from the crest looking towards Greece
a local Turkish Pide I tnought well deserved after today exercise but no alcohol
A circular tour in the province of Aydin
What was booked as a boutique small group tour became a very personal trip with an extremely articulate and knowledgeable Turkish guide called Adam! Why? Because I was the sole member of the group. We set out in extreme dry heat in a small Fiat that Adam hurled around the highway at breakneck speed (downhill at least), thus gaining enough momentum to cough and splutter up hill. Those highways that we travelled were impressive and dual carriage way, although this did not stop the occasional farmer’s tractor, kid on a bike or mangy dog from tempting fate by simply being on the road or worse still actually travelling against the flow of traffic. For a while I pictured myself back in India.
We were to visit three ancient Greek cities. Whilst Ephesus is the jewel in the archaeological crown in Aydin, I had visited the site 40 years ago, so opted for these amazing cultural heritage sites. Adam and I, not pushed for time or hindered by straggling or complaining crowds, meandered between sites. We visited Priene, Milet and finally the Temple of Apollo in the village of Didim.
The other memorable aspects were the abundance of figs! Roadside stalls sold baskets of yellow and purple figs, unblemished, huge and beautifully sweet.
We had lunch at a local roadside Cafe where the food was laid out as a smorgasbord of typical Turkish mainly vegetables. Adam ordered a fresh sea Bass grilled with fresh lemon and salad which we shared. Oh and by the way the tomatoes were sublime – rich red and so flavoursome.
3 photos of the ancient city of Priene, founded around 350BC. It was at settlement, by the sea! But the silt of the River Meander over the centuries pushed back the sea level. With global warming who knows in a few more centuries, the water level may return to ancient levels!
The monstrous amphitheatre of Milet and the fantastic Roman baths.
a panorama of the amphitheatre
Several pictures of the Temple of Apollo
Allah be praised
At Istanbul international airport I approach the AKTURK Bank money changing counter. I have some small denomination notes, 10 English pounds and a crisp New Zealand $20. They proved apparently worthless to the state owned bank. Believing as I do, that an English pound was surely as safe as…… well a bank, this particular note had a 5 mm tear in the upper right corner. It was disdainfully discarded across the barrier. The last time this happened was 40 years ago in Nepal, where even the Royal Bank of Nepal refused to take their own money with the minutest nick. Pass across currency crumpled, creased and covered in cow dung and it would pass muster immediately provided it was un-nicked. As for the virginal NZ note it was also rejected. She had never heard of New Zealand and despite my best efforts at imitating a sheep, she was resolute in her rejection.
I regrouped and stepped six paces to the right where the adjacent Travellex exchange counter coped unphased and unfussed with both currencies, even a slightly lacerated Queen Elizabeth II.
The 6 days I am to spend in Kusadasi have all been planned and prepaid before leaving Adelaide. At Izmir airport I am collected by an adolescent who manfully carries my backpack out to a Mercedes van and he and his father transport me at breakneck speed the 100 km to Kusadasi. I suspect that they will transport me back to Izmir as well, Allah be praised.
Kusadasi is the archtypical ancient seaside settlement that has been gone from a vibrant medieval centre of the spice trade to a modern mecca of the rag trade. The old part of the town is crumbling and whilst the local municipality have turned the historical streets near the shore into boulevards and pedestrian malls, it is still a seething tourist hub of commercialism. The number of shops selling blatant copies of italian designer clothing and footwear, is only outnumbered by the population of alley cats and kittens. Several gaudy side streets are dedicated wholly to tattoo parlours. The overall feel for the “old town precinct” was as far as I was concerned a unique mishmash of the Vietnamese street markets and the gaudy streetscapes of our western seaside tourist townships minus thankfully the pussies.
Food and icrecream stalls abound and did a roaring trade after 7 pm. Until then the outside temperature hovered around 38 degrees and that with a high humidity induced a sophorific physical and mental stalemate.
By the second day I was feeling more enthusiastic – although the death of Oliver Sacks, the reading a “Fairyland” by Sumner Locke Elliott on the plane over and the memories of the many books by Bill Bryson which I adore, all combined to induce a tsunami of self doubt about my literary skills and I sat down at the keyboard.
In the mornings I walk at dawn, having been rudely called to pray at 5:30am by the Tannoy speakers on the mosque. Clearly this acapella cacophony is digitised on an iPod playlist and set to automatic whilst the Mufti remains in bed asleep with a pair of earplugs affectionately known as the “Mufti Muffs”.
I swam in the Agean sea in the late afternoon, meandered home via a Turkish chocolate ice cream parlour and proceeded to tongue my Recorder in the confines of the hotel garage whereupon within seconds the Mufti iPod activated calling all to evensong and several stray cats started a fight to the death in the alley outside the garage.
Ladies Beach. lots of stray cats but definitely no room to swing one
care for a tattoo ?
A few snaps around Kusadasi Turkey
lets get the obligatory sunset pic out of the way
it all looks so quaint and rustic…but sadly deceiving
a spooky abandoned house by moonlight
the port at Kusadasi
more fishing boats
A Book is Born
I belong to the “slide night” generation, having been subjected to these events in childhood, the consequence of having a father who enjoy photography. Not surprisingly I followed in his footsteps. My first trip overseas at the end of my fifth year in medicine was to Nepal. In Singapore I purchased a relatively expensive SLR Pentax camera. Over the next 15 to 20 years I accumulated a cupboard of Kodachrome slides. In the three months that I worked at a mission hospital in Kathmandu I wrote a diary in fact it was the beginning of a travel blog before travel blogs were invented! Those of you who have been intermittently reading this web-based travel blog realise that I enjoy creating and I think have a modicum of talent, in such writing. So it was a few weeks ago that I purchased an expensive Epson professional photocopier which had the ability to copy and archive Kodachrome slides. I have now dictated the typewritten diary which I turned into a bound book at the end of my university course and now plan to “publish” it in a more modern and user-friendly version To whet your appetite I post below two or three of the slides which I took and have modified in terms of size to incorporate them into my pending publication. My stay in Kathmandu was divided into working in the hospital and finally for the last month I trekked to Everest base camp and then returned, to enjoy after a month without washing, a beautiful warm shower. The pictures explain it all.
I am listening to a young Nepalese man complain of chest pain. Many were convinced they had TB and not without reason!
Everest : The summit from the Based Camp at Kalapatar.
Amadablam Some say this is more majestic than Everest.
First cycle is a hot shower with soap and srub
Then a rinse cycle in COLD water, enough to make everything shrink.
Stretched pictures solved.
I am aware that in the several posts to my blog whilst travelling in the last three weeks, that many of the photographs particularly those which were taken in portrait mode were inexplicably elongating to the point of being irritating and worthless to view! I think I have solved the problem and by redesigning the site and using a more simple template it would appear that the issue is resolved! Have a review and tell me if it has not rectified the problem. I’m now safely back in Australia and return to work with a vengeance! Summer swimming has ceased and so I will probably be cycling more frequently and perhaps getting to the gym once or twice a week.
Oklahoma
To my disappointment, a new production of one of my favourite musicals was about to open in London the week after I left! If it is in London now there is the possibility that hopefully it will appear in Australia in the next few months or at least during this year or possibly next. Many of my readers might be fascinated to learn or to see me playing the recorder especially as it seems to occupy a significant part of my blogs and whether I’m playing in the toilet or the gymnasium of the hotel, I think I’m slowly improving! Hopefully in the next few weeks I can upload a video of my musical endeavours! Now that I’m back in Australia unfortunately the frequency of my blogging will decrease but there is the tantalising prospect of further holidays in September when I will be going to Istanbul and then joining a swim trek around the Greek islands for a week! Then cycle down around the south of Italy! If you want to join me, start training!
The one thing which was rather silly was I miscalculated the weather in Britain and I became seriously cold when visiting my cousin in Newcastle., Silly me I assume that as it was Spring……
A poster from WW I Part of the new display of Music of the Great War at the Royal Academy of Music
My Last Night in London
A night at the Opera
I met my niece Meg amongst the thousands of predominately young people in a frenzy of noise, alcohol and aimless meandering. One may question the juxtaposition of “frenzy” and “meandering”, yet to my mind that is the best way to describe it.
Meg works as a physiotherapist at one of the London metropolitan hospitals in the acute assessment section of the Emergency Department.She has accepted a permanent position till 2018, so is committed to Britain for a few years.
We had a memorable meal at a Peruvian Restaurant in Covent Garden a stone’s throw from what are arguably two of the main attractions of my materialistic existance: the Royal Opera House and the London Apple Store! Covent Garden is the centre of the Theatre world in London and on this evening, could well have been the centre of the universe.
Several events took place today in London that drove crowds to fill the streets to capacity: the Annual Head of the River (women) and the release of the Apple watch. Finally there was the other quality that brings every Londoner out of the woods – the sun. I am reminded of the witty song about the English weather by Flanders and Swan “January brings the snow..” which describes weather conditions each month and that for July goes “In July the sun is hot, is it shining…….? No it’s not.”
The Apple Store is as packed as the Tokyo Underground. People are drawn like iron filings to a magnet by the Apple Watch. I have not worn a watch for almost 30 years. Can I resist the temptation?
Back to the Opera at Covent Garden and the Royal Opera House. I had a seat in the front row of the Grand Tier (left) for the opening night of that joyful Rossini opera buffo ‘Il Turco in Italia”. It was beautifully sung and the orchestra was more than a match but….. I had attended the same opera last year in Melbourne, the Australian Opera production directed by Simon Phillips, his staging was extraordinary, world class, beating the ROH offering by a country mile. The Australian singers not only sang their hearts out, but had been thoroughly coached in acting and had perfect timing in both singing and their comedy acting. The Melbourne production was set in the 1950s on the beach in a bustling Italian trattoria and coffee shop. Vibrant primary colours and those blue, green and pink pastels so reminiscent of that time. The star was the dark handsome macho Salim the Turk who acted his high camp heart out. An outrageous and uproariously funny, unforgettable evening. In summary though the London experience was not without its moments and as an opera tragic, I had a great night out.
part of Covent Garden market
the Crush Room at yhe Opera where you may eat your lobster and champagne at interval
the auditorium
the modern addition to the Opera house
A Musician in the Gym
An American woman, I would estimate in her early 50’s (although Botulinum is not known as a ‘toxin’ for nothing) enters the hotel gym. I was until then alone, saddled on a cycle machine, with my sheet music on the computer screen, an excellent music stand. Rather than climbing the virtual Pyrenees, I am scaling C major. The America, with rather tight leotards and face to boot, encourages me to continue. I decide that it would be better to attempt a recognisable tune, rather than scales, and launch into ‘Greensleeves’. I finish with a flourish and I do confess with a slight degree of satisfaction as I played it rather well. This was confirmed by the sole member of my captive audience who exclaimed breathlessly “that was beauooooootiful!” Pausing to take a mouthful of Spring Water, she enquired if I was a “professional musician?” No, she was serious! Demurely I said no I was simply learning to keep my brain active. I was on a roll here so I said of course that was “Greensleeves”. Yes she said……. its a wonderful Christmas Carol. Feeling rather Peter Sellarish, I then ventured that it was composed by King Henry V111. Now that you mention it she said, as she picked up speed, I do recall that. He was very talented wasn’t he. This being more of a statement than a question. By now I quickly realised that I could safely return to my scales, the Adagio from the Mozart Clarinet concerto, my signature piece, would fall on deaf ears.
The Last Day in London
It is Saturday. The morning newspapers describe an episode of road rage, appropriately outside the Waterloo Underground station. A male pedestrian attempted to punch and beat up a driver through his car window. The driver accelerated away and knocked over another 2 pedestrians and collided with 3 other cars as he sped away. The headlines attributed the temper tantrum to the ‘heat wave’. The maximum temperature yesterday was 17 degrees centigrade!
This, the final day of my symposium, promises such stimulating topics as “Systemic mechanisms of anti-epilpetic protection” which is the opening lecture at 8am. It can only get better. The highlight of Thursday was ‘Animal models of status epilepticus: persectives on predictability and translation”. Surely I can be forgiven for heading to the Royal Academy of Music on Friday? I made sure that I arrived back in time for the plenary session on “Intramuscular and rectal therapies of acute seizures”.
The opening lecture today was, if possible, worse than I anticipated. The blameless Professor was from Russia with an accent so thick as to be unintelligible. Obviously aware of this impediment to audience understanding, his talk was completely subtitled in English as PowerPoint slides. This attempt at improving communication was sadly negated by content. All the studies he presented were from the 1980s and I have a strong suspicion were the results of his own endeavours when he was an enthusiastic young researcher in the Siberian hinterland 3 generations ago.
By contrast I could quite easily have spent three full days dipping into an amazing summer programme of free recitals, lectures and masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music. A simply stunning London musical institution. Visit their web site.
In summary and to be brutally frank and truthful, I would have gained much more if I had stayed at home and taken a week to read UpToDate. So what were the take home messages? Firstly that status epilepsy is VERY bad for the brain. The genesis of prolonged seizures is basically still unknown and finally that midazalam is the drug of choice squirted into the nose rather than the rectum. All points that were not exactly revelations to me.
A few observations on shopping in London. Don’t bother! Windows is better, and I am not talking computers. Bargains don’t exist especially since the fall in the value of the dollar. That said all the iconic streets and shops crawl with consumers. More numerous than date palms in the Sahara, black burkha clad women cut a swathe through their scantily clad young western equivalents, heading to Harrods where they hover around haberdashery before a furtive dash to lingerie. A whole wall of delicate lace G strings confronts them. They snap them up and like a Model T Ford, they can have any colour they like, so long as it is black.
I am on a never ending quest to buy some “grandpa collar”shirts. I enter one of those shops with loud music playing, bright Hawaii surf shirts, acres of designer sunglasses and board shorts. The alarm to detect shop lifters as they leave in these stores is inavriably camouflaged in wood that is dressed up to look like so much shipwrecked timber, flotsam washed up on a sandy island.
A young woman sales assistant at the entrance asks me “Can I help you Sir?” The tone of the voice and inflection is not in anyway taken as an offer to help me choose. No it is definitely more of an oblique reference to the fact that I am at least two generations past the profile of their average shopper. Indeed it is a kindly way of paraphrasing “Good morning, sir, you are obviously rather lost and confused and I am here to help and show you the way out and point you in the direction of Marks and Spencer’s.”
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