July 14, 2000: More turkish impressions... Merhaba remember our last report? in istanbul, we get that offer to stay at a private hotel room. the hotel, called "villa marmaris", belongs to "king men" jimmy. he's 82 years and kind of special and interesting. he studied telephaty and meditation in india and does his yoga exercises every morning at 5, which keeps him healthy day by day. the day after our arrvial at "king men" jimmy's home, he returned with another 3 travellers, he picked up the same way like us. we made a trip with our 3 rumanian friends to the princess islands, which is a favorite istanbul weekend trip and the only occasion to swim in the ocean. the following day we travelled by boat and bus to bursa. bursa is located 3 hours south of istanbul, situated on a mountain with a mountain railway made in switzerland. bursa isn't a touristic place, so people rarely speak english. there's a wonderful mosque where muslims are praying the koran. you have to enter barefeet, there is a carpet all over the floor, no benches and women have to wear a scarf (also jeannette). in bursa, there are lots of bazaars where you can buy all different kind of scarfs... riding through the night by nightbus we arrived after a short nap very early at kusadasi, located at the aegean sea. we took a cab, joined by a man who promised to know a good hotel. few minutes later, price already fixed, we slept for another few hours in our hotelroom. after weaking up, we first had to check our new neighborhood - we were lucky to find out that we're at a nice place. we just hanged out that day, enjoyed the beauty of the world famous ruins of ephesus, they're really impressing. another impressing fact was the temperature, 48.1 degrees (celsius), the hottest day for years. right now we're at pamukkale whith its famous limestone terraces. it is forbidden to bath in the beautiful natural pools, but at moonlight dani layed into one of these 35 degrees warm springs - amazing! we experience turkey as a wounderful country with friendly, helpfully and open minded people. ...just a few minutes before, we experienced our first little earthquake.... the floor bounced as if a heavy loaded truck would have passed by, but the pc is still on.

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