The Long Journey Home

Our merry band had grown to 5 and at 2:30am in the morning we were all met at the bus station by one of the pension’s staff. A short walk and we finally made it to bed for some well desserved sleep.

The following morning we woke up to vegemite on toast for breakfast. Not really a surprise as the place was called the Australia & New Zealand Guesthouse.

Roman ruins in Ephesus

After breakfast it was off to the roman ruins of Ephesus with some others that we had met along the way. This place was huge and even had a huge open air theatre that could seat 20,000 people. We were treated to a big group singing the Turkish national athemn which really was quite dramatic as it echoed through the theatre.

My Turkush mates

It was also here that I was mobbed by a group of school kids who just wanted to use me as a sounding board for their English. The three most common questions were – What is your name? Where are you from? What time is it? In exchange I taught the double thumbs up!

In front of the Great Library in Ephesus

That afternoon was spent in the pub watching the Chelsea v Man Utd match followed by a BBQ at the guesthouse.

Grocery shopping

The rain rolled in the next day so it was kept pretty quiet just wandering around Selcuk. We were going to head to Pummakale for the day but spending 16 hours on the bus didn’t really appeal.

Our adoptive kids

Back on another overnight bus to Istanbul before we farwelled Turkey for the final time. We didn’t really want to leave and could have easily spent another 2 weeks exploring the south coast.