Image via Wikipedia

One of the sites that looked beautiful on the photos was Pamuckale. My girl friend also heard that it’s suppose to be a great place to visit. So, instead of paying to a tour company we started to search on how to get there by buses.

It turned out that the site is 3 hours ride away from Kusadasi. We had to go to the central but station (The local name is “Garaj”) , don’t get confused with the mini bus station, it’s a different place.

We used a bus company called KamilKoc. They have a bus going to Denizli, which is a nearby town to Pamuckale) at 9:30 AM. It took us 3-3.5 hours to get there. The ride cost 20 Turkish lira per person.
Ask to get of at the Garaj in Denizli. From there we took a mini bus for 2 Turkish lira to Pamuckale.
After 20-30 minutes ride the bus drops you in the center of Pamuckale village. The village is right under the site which well seen from the village.

All you left with is walking to the terrace (entrance: 10 lira) for a few minutes.
It’s a beautiful site which really doesn’t exist anywhere in the world (as far as people told us).
You walk up the terrace and you have pools of water mixed with lime. People go in the water and it’s really nice. Don’t worry,the maximum depth is 10-15 inch.

Pamuckale also has a big Archeological site, but after seeing Ephsus on the day before, we decided we we will skip the archaeological part of the day. We think it’s a different entrance fee from going into the lime pools.

After we walked all around we went to a few of the pools that were allowed to swim at. No shoes are allowed when you step in the lime area.

The last bus leaving Denizli back to Kusadasi is at 18:00 ( 6:00 PM). We took a different company than the one on the way to Denizli. The company called “Pamuckale”,just like the site. the ride to Kusadasi costs 23 Lira and it even took less than 3 hours ride.

A few words about Denizli. We had a little time going around there. We never read of Denizli or tried to find out what’s to do there since we really didn’t have time. But, Denizli looked to us as an ordinary local city with no tourists. near the Garaj there are many restaurant serving local non toursty food and not expensive. Also If you need a bank or ATM machine there are a bunch around.

Concluding our day, we think that on a short vacation like we had, it wouldn’t be worth going all the way to there just for this. We had a 4 night vacation so this takes the whole day. If you have time It’s worth taking your time and going there as part of a whole longer trip. You can even stay a night or two at pamuckale village.

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• July 9, 2008 -- Traveling through time - Sirince & Ephsus (0)
• July 6, 2008 -- Have you ever heard of Kusadasi? (0)
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In order to get the “full” local experience and adventure we used the local transportation. a dolmush is running from Kusadasi to Selcuk (pronounced: selchuk) and it’s written on the front part of the dolmush vehicles. It’s a pretty short ride of around 25 minutes and costs 4 Turkish lira, which is about 2 Euro per person. You get off in selcuk at the last stop (you’ll see many dolmushes around) and then take another Dolmush going to SIRINCE, This ride is also not too long and costs 2.5 Turkish lira.

The Village itself is one of kusadasi tourist attraction and therefore it’s main strrets a re also very touristy like with stores and coffee shops. We decided to wonder around the village and get to it’s upper part where no tourists are preset.

A local woman who spoke no English grabbed us in one off the allies and took us in her house. It was a single room house and very modest. She gave us some Apricots and then suggested some of the crafts she makes for sale. We didn’t really want to buy anything, but she was very nice and we felt somewhat uncomfortable, not to mention that what we bought was really low priced. so, we decided it’s worthwhile buying.

later on we walked around some more and reached a church. This church has a good view point over the whole village.

Our next stop was Ephesus. We saw the entrance to the site right before selcuk. It’s situated on the road between Kusadasi and Selcuk. Ephesus ( Or efes, as the locals says) is really close to selcuk, just a few minutes ride with a local Dolmush.

Ephsus is a Greek archiological site. It’s well preserved and beautiful. Entrance fee for the site is 10 Turkish lira per person. vocal earphones guide is availble for rent also.

The site is huge and has a few attractions that worth seeing. there is a big Amphitheater, A magnificant wall of an ancient library. One of the most beautiful ones is the rich houses terrace. It’s partly rebuild with the help of the Austrain Government and has additional entrance fee (10 Lira). It’s worth that cost!

Since it’s a big site it’s recommneded for a 2-3 hour visit. The place doesn’t have much shade so it’s good to prepare for that. Take a lot of water, sunscreen and hats.

In order to leave you need to walk to the main road. It’s 10-15 minutes walk. From there you take a Dolmush back to Kusadasi. We decided to try and hitch hike. well…It worked! a car stopped with 2 nice girls and their mother. They were on vacation too and were locals from Ankara. They didn’t only take us to the main road but all the way to Kusadasi. They had a vacation house there. We exchanged phone numbers in order to meet later on.

on the whole we think it’s defently possible going to Sirince and Ephsus on the same day. They are pretty close and both are beautiful place. We even had time at the end of the day jump into to swimming pool.

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• July 6, 2008 -- Have you ever heard of Kusadasi? (0)
• July 10, 2008 -- The white Terrace of Pamuckale (3)
• December 24, 2007 -- Challenge Yourself When Traveling (0)

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Kusadasi is a a touristy town full of hotels and resorts. It’s located in western turkey on the Aegaen sea shore, 45 minutes driving south of Izmir. The town is set on a beautiful bay and it’s well known site is the pigeon island. Kusadasi is also very close to the Greek Island, Samos and it’s a nice excrusion to do for a day, although we preferred staying on Turkish land.

We arrived there last Sunday at noon. We spent our 1st afternoon there walking around the place and got to know it. Since my girlfriend and I are not really big fans of staying at the beach or the hotels swimming pool all day long, we decided we want to visit some more exciting places.
So we had great plans for the next 3-4 coming days.

Various touring agencies sell tours to places around Kusadasi, But we decided we want to do the things by ourselves, which is much more cheaper and fun. The whole area has great public transportation using Dolmushes. Dolmush is a kind of an 10-12 seat car which goes around like a bus line. they stop everywhere you like on the road and pick you up wherever you are, although some of the line have set stops as well.

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• July 9, 2008 -- Traveling through time - Sirince & Ephsus (0)
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High Camp has a accommodations for 110 persons, whoever reaches too late gets to sleep in the dining room. nobody get to be thrown out, don’t worry

Eventually instead of leaving at 7AM we left at 8:30AM. We knew we have something like 2.5-3 hour of walking till Throng Phedi (That’s the place to stay for the night before High Camp). Throng Phedi means, under the mountain or hill, which is of course under Throng La pass area, the highest place around.

We reached Throng Phedi at 9:50AM. This was a good start for the day…Walking there includes some uphill walking but a lot of it is also straight surface.

Throng Phedi was discovered to be a VERY nice place. We stopped there to get used to the height of 4450 meters.

At 10:30 we decided to go on. We understood that the hardest climb of the trek is just beyond us. The Climb is one hour long it’s slow hard to breath walk. Some people that want to acclimatize thmeselves get to Throng Phedi climb to high camp and then walk back down to Throng Phedi. Then next day they climb this again. we acclematized ourselves enough in Mananag and along the way, we stayed extra nights at some places and climbed a little every day.

Entering into high camp we found there are 2 camp sites. The 1st buildings you’ll see on your left are the old buildings. don’t waste your energy that you don’t have anyway to walk around there. Keep walking up a little more to the buildings on the left. This is the new camp.

At High Camp we took 2 rooms. it really didn’t seem the acoomodation there were too crowded.
After resting and settling out breath we decided to go for a walk around. there is a mountain right beside the camp which is 100-150 meters higher than the camp itself. There is a great view for there and it’s highly recommended.

At the Time of year we were there (end of October) the whole mountain side was covered with snow. It’s was great sliding on it using the plastic coats we had! Try not to slide accidentally to unknown places where only a helicopter can help getting you out of.

Since high camp is a almost the highest place around, if the sun is out there aren’t any mountains disturbing it’s way into the greenhouse like dinins room. It’s VERY plesent and warm (as long as the sun is shining), with big glass windows watching the whole area around.

pricing:
room for a night: 320 NR
Spaghetti: 190 NR
potato curry (recommended): 130 NR
Veg fried rice (recommended): 190 NR

Since high camp is an isolated place there is no meat in the menu, only veggie stuff.
also, There is light at the rooms (on some other guest houses on previous days there wasn’t) and an early dinner is served at 4:30 PM.

We went to sleep very early at around 6:00 PM , because our plans were to wake up at 4AM in order to cross Throng La Pass.

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We Left at 8:55 in the morning and reached Yak Karka at 12:15 PM. walking from Manang to Yak Karka is easy. A little bit of an uphill trail but really not too bad. Towards Yak Karka there is an half an hour to an hour of almost straight walk, with no uphills or downhills. These are the times when we had our chance of really enjoy to views, without worrying about our next physical challenge.

We decided we will spend the night at Yak Karka. It was the beginning of November which is high season. We were afraid there won’t be any rooms left for all of us ( we were a group of 4 people). Eventually we found a guest house. It wasn’t even too hard.

Since we arrived early, it was only noon time I sat in the dinning room and learned some Chinese. I started talking to a 60 years old man from Canada. His name was wain. He said that it’s the toughest physical challenge he ever had. At some point he showed me his camera and said it’s not working, he thought he needs a new charger…I needed a few minutes to figure out that a remarkable button named “RESET” would solve the problem. He was very greatful!

I think this is the greatest magic in traveling. I love these encounters with people from all around the world. learning about their culture, home, work. It’s fascinating!

here’s some common pricing at Yak Karka:
2 Boiled eggs - 80 NR
Chapati (2 pieces) - 80 NR
Vegetable soup - 95 NR
double room - 150 NR

The next day we headed to Letdar. Letdar is just a few guest houses on the mountains. It’s not really a village. villagers from Manang built these Guest houses ( there are 4 of them, I think) for travelers. Letdar is very close to Yak Karka, 35 minutes walk…We took it easy and spent Friday and sauterday resting there.

Letdar is more expensive than Yak Karka since as you go higher all services are more expensive. just think that the food you are eating made the same way you did on the back of one of the many porters working in the area.

costs at Letdar:
2 Boiled eggs - 100 NR
chapati (2 pieces) - 100 NR
Veg spring roll - 180 NR
Spagetti with tomato souce - 190 NR
double room - 200 NR

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• April 29, 2008 -- Annapurna Circuit – days 13 - Letdar to High Camp (0)
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I’ll start from the beginning…
after Rabin, the left winged prime minister that was assacened by a jew in Israel, the Israeli society began to by very divided like. left and right, secular and religious jews…they were all in a great conflict.

After that a few movements in Israel were developed in order to bridge the problems in the Israeli society. One of these movements is Tzav Pius (meaning “directive appeasement”). It Aims to have a true dialog between different groups in Israeli society. By creating a dialog between very divided society the aim was to get us more unite.

I joint today one of thier projects for one day. This project was not generated by them but is supported by them. Thier aim is to walk large parts of the Israel trail together in order to get different people from different groups in Israel get to know each other.

The Israel Trail (Shvil Israel) goes all along the state of Israel. It’s not only a physical trail, but also a human trail. on each spot on that trail we have as Israeli and jewish people some kind of historical or significant event happened to us, which all of israelis are united around it.

Today was an amazing day for me meeting various people when walking on the trail. some people walk it from the begining to the end which takes around 2 months. some people just join a day or 2, like I did.

This project is also for the memorial of Avi. Avi was one of the soldiers that was killed almost 11 years ago when to Israeli helicopter crashed together at the north part of Israel. His parents are the initiators of this project. This is the 3rd year that this project is running.

they don’t have a website in English though….but if you still want to have a look:
http://www.avi-beshvil-israel.org.il/misgeret.php.
it’s in Hebrew

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• July 10, 2008 -- The white Terrace of Pamuckale (3)
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Source: Wikipedia

I read about Tilicho Lake a lot before deciding I want to go there. Most guide books claim it to be a little dangerous. Also it’s off the beaten track of most travelers which is the reason I go trekking - feeling adventurous! But even going to those places one should be smart enough and not do stupid things. I’m a very responsible traveler.

The Tilicho Lake is a side trip at the Annapurna Circuit trek. It leaves from Manang, and takes 3-4 days to complete and coming back to Manang. This was my plan….

Leaving Manang in the morning walking through kangsar to Tilicho Base camp. On the next day climbing up to the lake at dawn and sleeping again at the Tilicho base camp an additional night. The last day would be walking back the same way we walked the 1st day.

We left Manang at 7:45 towards kangsar. Our , Sonam, said it would take 3 to 3.5 hours reaching the village. We were very glad to discover after one hour and 20 minutes that we have reached our 1st destination – kangsar village.

We wanted to continue walking to the Base camp. On the way Sonam fell twice and twisted his leg. We saw he started to limp and it hurts for him. We kept walking anyway….

My friend Eli, which joined this side trip, and I were for fear of the trail going there. There are 2 ways reaching the base camp. One is long and hard & takes 4 hours. It goes up a mountain and then all the way down. The 2nd trail is the lower trail it’s an easier relatively straight trail which takes around 2-2.5 hours to complete. The problem is that the latter one is a very narrow trail, with a land slide to the side of it at some part, defiantly not a great experience…

In addition at the afternoon the wind start to blow there and Blue Sheep start to walk on the mountains which causes rocks to fall down on the trail. It was pretty early but we had to make a decision on which trail to walk.

We asked each person passing us on the opposite way if the lower trail is appropriate for waking. Everyone said its fine and we shouldn’t worry. My main fear was the landslide. It’s a narrow trail for one foot while the other foot must be put on the landslide, this causes the sand to go down a bit….fortunately it stops and you don’t find yourself falling down the mountain…but still very scary in my opinion.

After Sonam asked a few people we met a bunch of tourists which came down from the lake. They said the road down is fine and no need to be afraid of that landslide. The Problem is, they told us, was falling rocks (!!!) when climbing up from the base camp to the lake. They said there were strong winds therefore a big rock almost hit them when rolling down!

I didn’t want to take ANY risks I don’t have to take. I agreed to walk a few more hours on the longer and more difficult trail (Although everybody said the lower one is just fine). I was managing my risks…..

In addition I decided that there would be strong wind we won’t going to climb up to the lake from the base camp…another risk is solved. One risk I couldn’t solve was Sonams’ leg. He claimed to be fine…

I was afraid to walk on the lower trail and too lazy to walk the upper harder one. I solved this by saying to myself that because of Sonams leg we should just return and walk back to Manang.

That’s what we did eventually….

I was very disappointed on the way back for not coping with my fear of the way (which everybody said it’s just fine and walkable). On the other hand I choose the more human option and took care of my porter. What would have happened if something happened to him on the mountain?! Then would have been to deeper trouble. We then had needed to rescue him somehow and would have got stuck without a porter for the next few days.

If someone of my readers who walked this lower trail from Kangsar to Tilicho Base Camp can comment on this trail situation? Is there a way to do this way without risking yourself?

I’m thinking when will be my next chance of visiting there. That place is amazing from the pictures I saw!

I have a plan of taking a flight to Jomson on my next trip to that area then walk through Tilicho Lake and Tilicho pass, going again through Kangsahar, Manang and finally Homde. Homde, as I mentioned on previous post has an airport. So flying back to Pokhara is certainly an option.

This trip suppose to take 5-6 days and requires camping gear, since at the 1st 3-4 days of the trek, there are no guest houses to stay in,.

What do you suggest? How do you cope with these kinds of fears? When I came back I was angry at myself that I’m a just cowered.

After arriving back at Manang, I knew we made the right decision. I went with Sonam to the HRA (Himalayan rescue association) clinic. The doctor gave him some pills and put a bandage on his leg. He told him to rest as much a he can. On the other hand he said: “I know it’s your job and you don’t have any other choice, so if you are back to work then just don’t push it too much or else it will get worse.

On the next few days we took short and easy walks. Sonam’s leg was just fine afterwards…

“There are some things in life that are frightening and you just have to try them, but sometimes it’s hard to find some courage for that deep down inside you….”

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Manang is a special village along the way when trekking the Annapurna Circuit. It’s the last village before people going up to the highest place on trek - Throng La or Throng Pass which is 5416 M high up. This is high!

volunteer doctors from the HRA (Himalayan Rescue Association)
come every season and stay at Manang and other villages around to help the trekkers. When going into the heights above 2500- 3000 M many people suffer from a Problem called mountain sickness, Which can be leth?l if you are not aware of the symptoms and how to handle them.

When reaching Manang you are advised ( or more like…YOU HAVE TO) stay there for at least one day to acclimatize yourself to the heights. It’s just get higher and higher from there on until the pass and you want to survive that on perfect shape.

The clinic In Manang helps travelers and the local community in a few ways….Every day at 15:00 there is a lecture about mountain sickness. Many of the deaths from mountain sickness are caused because people were not aware what they should do when getting any symptoms of this illness and how to deal with it. It’s very important to reach this lecture and learn about mountain sickness. IT CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE!

The Clinic also helps the local people for free and is funded by the medical treatment being given to the tourists coming there.

It’s possible to buy medicine or other medical stuff you need and missing at the clinic or just donate by buying a T-shirt.

The HRA also operates a few more clinics around the Everest base camp for the same reasons.

I hope this small post would save many many lives. All you need to do is be aware of this mountain sickness. read about it, go to the lecture there and enjoy your trip!

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