KUSADASI TO DENIZLI The alarm went again at 6:30 and we showered then packed up our gear and departed. I managed to haggle the room rated down to 40,000TL with the bleary-eyed clerk and he hailed us a taxi. It cost 5,600TL to get out to the bus station and we paid 13,000TL each (£3) for our tickets to Denizli, the nearest town to Pamukkale.
The bus, which left at 8:15am, was large and comfy and after we had got going a man came around with scented water for everyone to freshen up with. As soon as we left the coast the landscape changed to rugged, scrubby hills deeply scarred by gullies and cliffs. Much of the lower slopes were cultivated with crops of wheat and barley while further up, rows of olive trees followed the contours.
Once we had crossed The first range of hills we descended into a fertile and intensively farmed valley. Some of the paddocks were being tilled by large groups of people which probably indicated co-op farms. Some of the land was irrigated by elevated concrete channels but most of them were dry. As we moved further inland the strip of fertile land on the valley floors grew narrower and by the time we reached Denizli at around 11:45am, the country was dry and windswept although we had still passed through large acreages of crops.
As soon as we got off the bus we were besieged with offers of trips to Pamukkale¹ several given in appalling Aussie accents!² We ignored them all and walked out of the bus terminal but one guy persisted and gave us some good reasons not to stay in Pamukkale but to stay in Denizli instead. So we agreed on a price of 20,000TL and I checked at the tourist office where I was told that camping at Pamukkale would cost 15 to 20,000 as well.
Pension Denizli³ was in a quiet little backstreet right next to a mosque. The owner, Suleyman, was determined to get across to us that we shouldn’t worry about being ripped off in Turkey and went out of his way to make us welcome. After we had settled into our room we decided to walk into town for a look at the Bazaar. It was a 20-minute walk into town and we spent an hour or so going to a few banks trying to get money on my Visa card to buy a leather jacket at some stage. The only bank that would do it couldn’t get through to Istanbul to check so no luck there.
The bazaar was quite big but not very interesting so we trudged back to the pension, stopping on the way to the ripped off over some food and drink and tea but it was only ￡1 involved so no worries.
In the evening after tea, we sat and talked with a group of Australians who were also staying in the Pension.
¹The white mineral terraces of Pamukkale were the reason that we had come to Denizli. Our plan was to camp at Pamukkale but that turned out to not be an option.
²A common ruse employed by salesmen all over Turkey was to adopt the accent of the country that they assumed you came from based on hearing you speak. Most of them knew the name of at least one city in various countries and would claim to have friends/relatives in “Melabourne”, ”Auckaland”, ”Seedanee” or wherever.
³The word “pension” is pronounced “pen-see-onee” and refers to a small accommodation house.
CurseOfTheTraveller 