New country, new culture

Everyday, I'm farther east than I've ever been before. And farther south than the day before. It's getting hotter. I was cold a week ago, as I remember. I finally bought a sweatshirt in Naxos when I was there because I was tired of being cold. I had lost mine somewhere in Spain. Now I don't need it at night even, and I need to search out shade in the day. BTW, here's a list of the things I think I've lost so far:
sweatshirt
nalgene water bottle
camera
wallet and all the stuff in it like my old student ID
contact case/solution
towel (I used a shirt for a week, then stole one from a hotel with a mean receptionist, then lost that. I'm towel-less again)
sunglasses
shampoo
about a third of my clothes (I don't know where they all go, but it's okay 'cause I'm accumulating new ones here)

To get to Bodrum, we took a ferry from Kos in the morning. It was supposed to go to Bodrum. It instead kicked us out at Turgetreis. A miscommunication? False advertising? I dunno, but it took us about 20 minutes to figure out that we weren't in fact in Bodrum. Turkish and English are pretty much not related at all, and most people don't speak a word of English here. Not even the words "yes" or "no". They don't even nod and shake their heads here for yes and no. No is tossing the head back and clucking your tongue. Yes is, I'm told, shaking the head like our "no", though I haven't seen it yet. It'll be worse in Bulgaria. It's completely reversed there. Shaking the head is yes and nodding is no.
The Greek word for "yes" is the Turkish word for "what?". I bet that's caused it's share of confusions.












Anyway, they're friendly here, and pointed us in the direction of the bus station. So, we made our way to Bodrum. It is the site of Halicarnassus, an ancient Greek city. It was under Persian rule by king Mausolus starting the 4th century BC. The mausoleum here was built in his honor, and is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The word mausoleum comes from this place. It was unfortunately destroyed in an earthquake about 400 years ago, and only ruins remain.
20 years later, Alexander the Great captured the city from the Persian Empire in a battle that destroyed most of the city.

Crusader knights built the other main historic attraction here: the castle. There are about 250 carved coats of arms on the outer wall of the castle representing important people of the time. I wish I had a coat of arms!












People are ruthless about hassling tourists here for their business. It was the same in the touristy parts of Greece. It's worse than in Mexico. There, as you drive up to an intersection, guys run at your car, squirting bottles of soap an your windshield, then jump on your hood like they're training to be in the army or something. They wash your windshield even though you're yelling "no, no, it's clean already". Then, when you drive off, they cuss at you and threaten to key your car because you didn't pay them. Nice. And at the next red light, it happens again. The guys trying to get you into their restaurants here in Turkey are worse. They pretend to be nice at first, but they're not. I don't know why the city allows it. If they banned those guys, it would be an incredibly more pleasant stay. Here's my routine for selecting a place to eat: Walk past the candidate restaurants and determine which one hassles less. Then go back to that one that passed the test.

From a distance, Turkey looks just like Greece. The languages even sound similar to my ignorant ear. At first, the main difference was that the blue Greek flag frown everywhere was replaced with the red Turkish flag, which is also flown everywhere. People fly their country flag more in Greece than any other country I've been to so far. The religion makes a big difference in the feel of Turkey. Muslims pray five times a day, and the prayer time is announced by a recording of chanting from the mosques around town. This place seems like a good way to ease into the culture. It's far enough west that they accept westerners, and the government is secular, but it certainly feels middle eastern.

This town is where many turks vacation. The beaches are questionable, but the weather's warm. People lounge on pillows on the beach smoking hookahs and drinking. At night, the main street along the beach is crammed with people looking at the shops and ending up at some club or restaurant. The other activity to do here is to take a traditional turkish bath, but I think having some guy rubbing me down would be too much of a culture shock.

Here's the view off the rooftop terrace of the hostel. Everyone here has these solar powered hot water heaters, just like in Greece.