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| Fabric store, Kusadasi, Turkey |
Kusadasi is one of the few ports on our entire itinerary
that we have visited before, but the same will be said for our three remaining
ports on the Grand Mediterranean portion of our cruise. The last two
weeks, from May 10th through 24th, we are extending our cruise and will fly
home from Amsterdam rather than from Rome. So in Kusadasi, which is the
port which is most easily accessible to Ephesus, we decided to make it an easy
day with neither of us scheduling an excursion.
We had visited Ephesus in 2008 on a hot, and I mean very
hot, July day. The heat had been intense, the crowds had been oppressive,
and the guide we had that day had moved so fast that we couldn’t take as much
time to enjoy what we were seeing, but even worse, the walk was down hill, over
ruins of hot marble, that made walking difficult. It was about a month
before Barb’s second knee replacement so she wasn’t moving fast then
either. Trying to keep one eye on the footing to make sure we didn’t fall
and the other on the guide who was way ahead of us, made that tour rather
difficult, but we enjoyed being in Ephesus and we had seen where Paul preached
to the Ephesians.
Of course Barb has had to curtail lots of activities off the
ship this cruise, but she told me to do whatever excursions I wanted, and so,
to take advantage of visits to places that most cruise ships never visit, I had
tried to do so. The pace has been hectic, but enjoyable. I have
seen so many wonderful new places with more to come on the cruise extension
that I thought it best to use this day to relax a bit, as I will in Katakolon in
a couple days which we will visit for the third time. The ship was doing
some maintenance with water being turned off between 10 AM and Noon today
so we decided we would spend some of that time off the ship.
We got off the ship with a megaship docked right next to us
and walked through the terminal with lots of typical shops. Barb had
remembered exactly how the port was configured. Not me! The port
itself looked new to me until she commented, “Don’t you remember this or that?”
and with my memory jogged, it did seem somewhat more familiar. What had been
very clear in my mind was that as we walked the markets in both Kusadasi and
Istanbul back in 2008, merchants were outside their shops, beckoning us to come
in and by that fur coat, or diamond ring, or the carpet which we didn’t
need. We were prepared for that so tried to walk, looking straight ahead
and professing no interest in whatever they thought we needed. A glance
to the side might mean we wanted to buy something. One said to Barb, “You
Americans are always in a rush,” to which Barb said “We aren’t going to buy
what we don’t want or need, and I don’t need a leather jacket.” She
commented to me that she remembered visiting a shop six years ago that called
itself a “no hassle” shop where shoppers could browse without being pressured
and if she could find that one, she’d go in. After walking a short distance,
she said, “There it is,” and we went in. Sure enough, no hassle. We
each walked out with a fridge magnet! Not a big purchase, but we bought where
we could look without being accosted. Those that know Barb are not
surprised that she can remember something like the exact shop where she made a
purchase six years before. Even though I know her well, it never ceases
to amaze me however. It reminds me of a trip to Britain we took with our
cousins in 1988. We were driving and Barb had a headache and wanted to
buy something. As we approached Drumnadrochit, Scotland she said (paraphrasing),
“if we go around the corner at the second roundabout and take the first right
and go down the street a little ways, the will be a store on the right hand
side with a pop machine on the porch.” Sure enough, we drove right to it
and it was exactly as described. She had been there two years
before. Anyway, after making her Kusadasi purchase, she decided it would
be best is she walked back to the ship.
I walked her back to the security checkpoint and then
continued on through the markets, again ignoring the persistent store owners
who wanted me to buy from them. Like with Barb, some of them saw me turn
down an offer to visit a shop, saying “my turn”. We had commented that we
wondered what made each merchant feel that if we turned down a competitor, that
we would want to buy the same item we rejected in one store and buy from
them! One thing I did notice was that the arm twisting this time wasn’t
as great. Maybe some are learning that Americans just don’t go in for the
heavy pressure and are more likely to buy if they can browse, check an item,
and then buy if they want. As I walked, I passed a couple of Muslim
mosques with their minarets and one time an amplified call to prayer. As
I walked toward the perimeter of the shopping area, I seemed to be left alone
more and the buying pressure wasn’t as great. I reached the first busy
street and looked across the street at a shady, heavily treed cemetery. I
crossed the street and considered walking into the cemetery but there was a
person standing at a small house and I decided I wouldn’t try to communicate
that I was just curious to check out their cemetery! I did snap a few
pictures from the sidewalk outside however. I walked back through the
market on a couple of different streets making sure I didn’t lose my sense of
direction. I wasn’t in the mood to get lost in Kusadasi! When I
approached the ship, I noticed off to the right was a wide promenade along the waterfront,
so decided to walk along that for a short distance. Here I was free from
vendors wanting me to buy and saw only strollers and locals who were intent on
going from one place to another. We were back to blue sky and the boats
and the two cruise ships. I reached a certain point and decided I had
gotten far enough away so I made my return to the ship and called it a
day. As I said, it was a quiet day in port, something that some cruisers
do each place, but it was a good change of pace for me.
On a much more somber note, our thoughts and prayers go out
to a couple from Vancouver that we had gotten to know vaguely. They are
on our floor and we met the woman at the elevator today and struck up a very
casual conversation. She told us that they were leaving the ship today,
rather than waiting four days to get to Rome. It seemed unusual to us but
she said the reason was a sad one. They had received word that their
daughter-in-law, a licensed pilot, had been flying a private plane and it
crashed, killing her. It was just a couple days after their 22nd wedding
anniversary. The “good news” was that
she was alone in the plane. Their son was OK but needless to say, was
devastated, so they were flying home immediately. She just kept shaking
her head, saying, “It’s awful. Just awful.” We were so sorry for
what they and their family are going through.
Believe it or not, we haven’t seen our table mate, Alice,
since April 30. She had had a cold and then attended the Captain’s
Dinner, which we had attended early in the cruise. Then Alice did a two night
overland trip in Turkey. We are hoping she didn’t experience the pouring rain
where she was on the day we were in Marmaris. We look forward to getting
reacquainted with her, hopefully, tonight.
CT
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