Day 3: Pamukkale the Cotton Castle and Hierapolis

Next, my story continues to Day 3.. Sorry about the Bangkok story previously.. couldn't help it, I'm too excited with shopping in Bangkok, hahahahahaa .. as I mentioned earlier, I'm here for work so at night I'm quite free, so I use this time to continue writing as I know once I'm back in Cyberjaya, there will be no time to write. Lots of commitment waiting for me at home and work place.

Back to our roadtrip, after the longest driving ever in our journey, we reached Denizli around 8 in the morning.. we drove a little further to Pamukkale and from far you can see the cotton castle up above the hill.. purely covered with white terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water .. we can't wait to go there but before that, we need to find a police station in Pamukkale. I already told about it in the previous post so not going to elaborate more..

We look for the hotel we found in the internet, Algau-Algau Hotel.. a small hotel managed by the local people. the owner can speak fluent english and the wife were so friendly..  we checked in for 45lira per person for 2 rooms and I got the room to myself..there are also other hotels nearby.. up to you which hotel you want.. but I can recommend this hotel as it's clean and warm .. :)

Finally, bed for the night..

As it's already morning, we dumped our bags and continue to the police station, had our breakfast with the handsome policeman and then continue to Pamukkale - the cotton castle and Hierapolis, an old spa behind Pamukkale. Cost for both entrance is 20lira.

Can you see my friend fall down at the background? Hahahahaaa.. it was funny though!!!!

Be careful while walking in this area.. it's slippery.. I never thought we captured this moment, we only knew he fell down when he told us later.. then I saw this photos and I can't stop laughing.. hahahaa..

Pamukkale, Feb 2013

At the entrance.. you have to take off your shoes to protect the color of the place..

The best spa ever!!!! Hot spring..

Then you walk to the back of Pamukkale and you will see Hierapolis.. Both Hierapolis and Pamukkale has been identified as UNESCO World Heritage.. Hierapolis means sacred city in greek.. it was a spa, and now still a spa with 35lira to swim in the hot water inside the spa.. However, according to Wikipedia, the hot springs there have been used as a spa since the 2nd century BC, and people came to soothe their ailments, with many of them retiring or dying here.

The map of Hierapolis.. Imagine how beautiful it was hundred of years before.. love this!!!!

The great baths were constructed with huge stone blocks without the use of cement, and consisted of various closed or open sections linked together. There are deep niches in the inner section of the bath, library, gymnasium and other closed or open locations. The complex, which was constructed in the 2nd century BCE, constitutes a good example of vault type architecture. The complex is now an archaeological museum. (also from WIKI) - The museum closed on MONDAY, on the day we were there.. too bad for us.. hmmmmm... but that's ok.. ;)

Walk a little further, you can see this huge theater  .. beautiful .. and huge!!! (ohh i already mentioned that).. hehehehee...

The huge theater at Hierapolis

I noticed all the historical theater in Turkey are huge!!! At first, by reading in the internet, I always thought that I will never be amaze by all this historical buildings.. but I WAS WRONG!!!!!! I felt the history and the story behind each buildings.. and I love being there.. We spent all our day just here.. admiring both Pamukkale and Hierapolis.. it was superb .. and it makes me fall in love with Turkey even more!!!

Finding our way home.. hehehee

If you drive yourself to this place.. make sure you went out the same way you came it.. Don't do the same mistake like we did.. because once you're out, there's no way to re-enter without paying another 20 lira.. hahahahaa..  at first we were trying to find our way down thru the hills then we realized it's not possible... we need to use the normal road..

We took a cab going down for 18lira.. and we kind of regret it because it was not that far and going downhill.. as a marathoner themselves, both my friends can easily walk for 5-10 km .. so, if a taxi driver tell you it took 5km to walk, or 3 hours to walk.. don't believe him.. it definitely less than that.. we learned not in a good way.. hahahhaa ..

Then, we get to our car. Put our bags and start walking again looking for food. We went inside the first restaurant we saw..

I had Lachmachun.. I like it.. simple pizza

This is the restaurant.. they were really friendly .. Love this place!!!

With Ozzie and her sister (i think).. hehehee

At 5pm, we went back to our hotel and straight away to the bed.. we haven't had proper sleep since day 1 .. so you can imagine how tired we are at that time.. At around 8pm, I wake up to check on the boys, and found them sleeping like a baby.. and of course, they didn't locked the door.. Wake them up to lock the door, scared that someone might come at night and stole things, and then went back to my room to sleep as well..

The next morning, all 3 of us woke up at 5am.. get ready, waited for Subuh at 630am ... left a Thank You note to Algau-Algau owner, and drive to our next destination, Kusadasi .. to see the great Ephesus..

to be continue...

Journey from Konya - Adana - Alanya - Antalya - Denizli

In the last post, I told you about our trip in Cappadocia and we left this unique town by noon.. it was still early and we reached Konya (next town) just around 1pm.. prefect time for lunch because we didn't eat anything in Cappadocia.. so we stop for lunch at the first shopping mall we find..

I really like this beef + some bread + sour sauce with tomato paste.. and some pickles..  yummy!!!!

After our stomach full with delicious Turkish food.. we set our GPS to Denizli, which suppose to be our next destination for Pamukkale.. It was my turn to drive and the boys straight away went to sleep.. Remember, we only had 3 hours sleep last night and I have slept earlier after going off from Cappadocia, so I was quite ok to drive although I'm not a fan of driving after lunch... anyway, during the journey, which was suppose to be to Denizli in 5 hours, we were a bit excited to reach the place while it still early (probably around 7pm) and we can have proper sleep.. well.. it didn't happened that way.. huhuuhuuu..

Here's what happened, instead of Denizli, the GPS showed us the way to Adana.. we have no idea how it happened and there are no explanations for it.. we just went to the opposite direction.. if you can see from my previous post, it was way out from our original route..

However, along the way, we saw magnificent view though..

Snow mountains

Superb view that we wouldn't have seen if we went straight to Denizli..

We stopped few times to take all these beautiful photos.. it was so beautiful, I didn't feel regret that we were lost.. But I still remember the conversation between me and Najib.. hehehe..

Najib woke up from his beauty sleep and asked: "Why we going to Adana"...

as a driver at that time, i was: "What?? Denizli will be next to Adana, right?"

Najib: "No.. it's totally different direction".. he took the manual map and showed me the exact location of Adana.. arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. I was already thinking of bed earlier after driving for more than 4 hours.. we were supposed to be in Denizli by this time..

Check our GPS, it will took another 10 hours to Denizli.. uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa lagi..

Due to the high frustration feeling unable to get a bed tonight, I don't want to drive anymore.. hahahaha.. so Najib continue the journey and after few discussions, we decided to follow different route which took us to Alanya - Antalya - Denizli.. little that we know what's ahead waiting for us... err for Najib actually (because at this time, I slept the whole way.. sorry Najib & Ijam).

Jeng.. jeng.. jeng ...

I didn't really know what happened.. there were few times I was awaken by the voice of 2 singers in the car, singing few songs.. I smiled and went back to sleep.. but there was 1 time I open my eyes and we were on a slippery road, on the hills, lots of cars and it was raining heavily.. I can see both Najib and Ijam were so serious and concentrate on the road, no more songs .. all I can do was "mengucap 2 kalimah syahadah" and went back to sleep.. it was around 1 a.m I think...

I found this image via google.. this was the most dangerous but beautiful route we ever take.. ahahahahaa

Finally we reached Alanya and decided to change the driver.. Ijam volunteered as he said he's ok to drive .. Najib went behind seat and straight away fall asleep.. I accompanied Ijam for a while but in less than an hour, I started to feel sleepy and can't open my eyes.. I told Ijam to stop if he feels tired or sleepy .. and then I was gone.. sleeping.. automatically..

but.. in just split second, I heard a loud "bang" from my side.. actually, less than 5 mins after I fell asleep, Ijam fell asleep too and the car move to the right and hit a lorry .. everyone was in total shocked, especially Ijam as he told me he was thinking about stopping in the next petrol station to sleep, but he fell asleep before he managed to find one..  poor him, he was worrying about it for the whole day but we told him to forget about it because we don't want it to spoil the rest of our journey.. we promised what ever happened, we will share it together by the 3 of us.. (that's why having a great company during traveling is soo important) .. short note: we did enjoyed the rest of our trip and didn't really think about the accident and the money we need to spend on it later.. my MO - duit boleh cari dan tak boleh bawak masuk kubur pun.. hik hik hik..

Note 1: we actually can claim insurance for the car, but one more mistake that we did, we didn't report the case at Alanya police station.. we went to Pamukkale police station and they didn't want to make any report because it was outside their jurisdiction.. we called the owner and he said he will do the report in Istanbul once we are back, but once he saw the car a week later, he said we were supposed to report in Alanya.. so we end up not having any police report and need to pay for the damage.. huhuuuhuhuhu.. so everyone pasrah dan menyerah.. and pay it without further argument.. senang je dengan kitorang nih.. malas nak fikir2 dan susahkan hidup.. life need to move on!!! hik hik hik.. REMEMBER: make police report at the place of your accident .. wait till morning and make that report.. it will save you some money.. our case is lucky because we shared the total damage so the cost is not too bad for 1 person.. :)

Note 2: Never ever ever ever drive if you're sleepy.. this is always my motto because I had few not so good experience during working in graveyard shift last few years.. you can fall asleep in few seconds and you have no control of it.. luckily our damage was not huge.. imagine if it gone worst..

Note 3: it's ok to be lost or change of direction.. you'll get new adventure that you can tell to your grandchildren one day.. or to a blog.. hahahahaa..

The damage..

This handsome policeman bought us breakfast, but no report.. huhuuuhu

That's one of our memorable journey during this road-trip..

More to come.. 

Additional:
I forgot to mention about our snow trip.. around 4 a.m on our way to Denizli, of course after the accident.. I continue to drive because I was fully awake and shocked by the incident.. so I asked Ijam and Najib to sleep.. of course Ijam can't sleep either so he accompanied me driving.. there was one moment that I remember driving in a fog and I thought it was sand .. a few minutes later, I saw a land of whiteness.. again, I thought it was sand.. but as we reached a small village with some road lights, I realized it was snowy .. Subhanallah.. I was so excited and woke Najib to see the snow as well.. again, we stopped for photos and playing with the snow for few minutes before we realized how cold it is and went back into the car.. hehehee ..

Snow coming down..

All covered with snow.. Best giler!!!