Another wonderful day in Turkey did make my day just awesome and blissful. We visited Pamukkale (the infamous Cotton Castle) located in Denizli province which takes around 3 hours drive from Kusadasi. The journey was quite a boring one but thinking of what awaits us at the destination, I felt excited and could hardly feel the boredom of the long journey. There was a short stop for refreshment and just the right time to loosen the frigid skeleton.
Onyx factory outlet
When approaching Pamukkale, the view of whitish hill from afar has stimulated the sense of excitement. But before we headed to Pamukkale, we were brought to onyx factory. Well, before entering this premise, I thought onyx appears in black color. But when viewing the onyx processing demonstration, later I learn that onyx does not only appear black, but can be green, light brown, dark brown etc. The products are nice and very finely carved but the price didn't impress me at all. Mum loved the white glass set but the whole set is heavy and expensive. So I told her not to buy as it would be a problem to carry them since we have more than a week to go before returning back to Malaysia.
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| That grandeur white hill where the Cotton Castle is located |
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| Products made of onyx |
After window shopping at the onyx factory, we had buffet lunch. Glad that there are varieties of food so I don't have to worry about picking food that suits my taste buds.
And after having nice lunch, we were brought to Pamukkale. We were dropped at the main entrance where there are several souvenir shops and small stalls selling ice creams and light snacks. Well, Pamukkale is not only about the white calcium carbonate pools but also the ancient city of Hierapolis.
So let the pictures below do the talking because I do not know what else to write.
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| The entrance |
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| Part of the ancient city of Hierapolis wall |
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| Daisies are numerous here. |
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| The ruins of Hierapolis |
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| The symbol of Denizli |
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| The hot spring believed to cure various diseases. |
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| This somehow becomes a wishing well |
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| Main source of the hotspring |
The terraces walking grounds are rough and I thought it would be very slippery. So it is not a problem to walk along the terraces. The more beautiful terraced pools are not accessible and it seems impossible to access that area. But it might be very cool if visitor can access this area and would look amazing in the photos.
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| Amazing pool terraces. |
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| Warm water |
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| White terraces made of calcium carbonate |
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| Cherry tree..I guess so |
Tulips are almost everywhere in Pamukkale. Spring may have arrived a little earlier here because I couldn't see full blooming tulips that many in Istanbul. Tulips are the symbolic flowers in Turkey but it seems that Holland has got more reputation for the tulips. But the fact is, tulips were introduced in Holland originated from Turkey. Many of the Turkish handcrafts have tulips embedded in the designs.
It represent prosperity, or wealth, if I am not mistaken.
Pamukkale is pretty small and within one hour you can finish exploring the whole area. So the kill the remaining times, it would be a great idea to take a dip in the hot spring which costs around 40 Lira. There are also open cafe should one feel likes taking light meals with coffee or Turkish tea.
We were instructed to wait at the main entrance building around 4 pm. So I thought it would be great to drop by the souvenir shops and grab several fridge magnets for myself. For 10 Lira, it is possible to get 3 nice fridge magnets. Not so sure if haggling is possible here.
That's the end of our trip in Turkey. We returned to Kusadasi and get our things packed as we have to fly to from Izmir airport to Sabiha Gokchen airport, to catch the flight to Paris. Well, I did horrible mistake here. I can actually fly direct from Izmir to Paris instead of flying back Istanbul. Shishhhh.....obviously I didn't focus that much on the flight routes. Otherwise would have saved more than RM 100.
