The Cotton Candy Castle (Pamukkale)

Name: salgirl

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Product:	Pamukkale
Date:	26/09/01 (261 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Different

Disadvantages: Trying to get there by car

If you go there, go by coach.

The following is the story of our journey, BY CAR, to Pammukale, in Eastern Turkey.

Hubbie and I decide to hire a car one mad, hot day and drive out to see the Cotton Candy Castle. We’d seen the pictures of gleaming white natural saucers filled with water of a deep, pale blue and thought “That’s the next sunbathing venue for us then.”

Consultation with a map showed a journey that didn’t look too far from our base in Kusadasi, and on a major road that joined the two places in a straightforward fashion.

Sorted.

Car hired, salgirl given the job of navigating, and off we jolly well went. The first town to head for was Aydin. No problems, out of Kusadasi, turn right at the roundabout and stick faithfully to that road. Take you straight there. No sweat.

Actually, sweat we did. There wasn’t air-conditioning in the car and opening the window was akin to sticking your head in the oven, so we drove along with the windows shut, singing our heads off (no radio either), looking for all the world like mental English tourists on holiday.

Aydin seemed to be taking a while to arrive, and when it did an hour later; we’d only covered two inches on the map. Pammukale was still miles away. I suddenly realised how huge Turkey is and checked the scale on the map. Whoops.

The road had become something that was more motorway like, and so we hacked along regardless. We were bombing along, mightily impressed with how, as we named it, the Magical Shitheap was performing. It may have looked dusty and careworn, but this car could really shift. All of a sudden, in the distance, an old lady in black clothes started to shamble across the road. Not trusting the brakes, hubbie applied them early and we slowed to a gentle cruise towards her. We could then see the markings of a zebra crossing. We looked in amazement at each other at the thought that they’
d put pedestrian crossings on these sort of roads, but we shrugged, waited patiently while she sauntered on, and started off again.

The roads are reasonably quiet, and we’d worked out by then that most drivers rely on the law of averages that a car WON’T be on the opposite side of the road when they overtake on corners. We’d seen a couple of heart stopping manoeuvres and approached any bends with caution.

Not content with giving you this little treat, the drivers also like to display their triple overtaking manoeuvre, which I managed to catch on Video. This involves a car with a lorry behind it. The lorry overtakes the car, and then a third unseen car pulls out from behind the lorry and attempts to overtake the other two. All of this was done with us heading towards the previously invisible third car, at a great rate of knots.

A game of Chicken immediately appeared to be in play. Not wishing to upset this country’s hosts, we braked hard to allow the third car to complete his triumphant move and position himself in first place. He didn’t even say thank you.

We’d been on the road for 3 hours by now. Not for us the sight of squashed cats or dogs. No. We get to see 4 horses that had been knocked down. Apparently there are no fences along the road, and as it cuts it’s dusty way through the open land, it is liable to having any local animal nearby to become a road hazard.

Despairing of ever arriving there, there was a sudden flash of white on the brown mountains in the distance. Could that be it? Indeed it was. A quick drive up a beaten up side road, past men, I was incredulous to see, in polo neck jumpers and we’d arrived in Pammukale.

Clambering gratefully out, we walked around the natural calcium springs slightly bemused about where they were. We were up high on a large cliff, and in this comparatively tiny place, the spring had bubbled its way out and flowed into stre
ams that gathered and crystallised into large pools, before moving on and repeating the process. They cascade their way down the cliff in this fashion, creating the saucers and containing the pale grey mud that reputedly holds healing powers.

The structures are referred to as Travertine (a porous rock consisting of calcium carbonate, used in building. Also called calcsinter. Got that bit from the dictionary) and they are extremely inviting, as the mud is warm, but incredibly slippery.

Stripping off for a quick sunbathe, it was very peaceful and a bit weird, but the view was amazing. Miles of flat scenery, surrounded by more mountains. I understood the word, ‘expansive’ at that point. We were travelling out of season, and so there weren’t many people to disturb us, but at high season I could imagine it would be very busy and probably not as enjoyable. Congratulating my luck, I then realised that more than one old lady, clutching embroidered napkins was carefully picking their way over. Not wishing to have to buy from all of them so as not to offend the others, I got up and went to find hubbie.

He was resting round the other side of the cliff, and brooding about the journey back. I don’t think he was enjoying the place as much as I was. I had wanted to go on to see the nearby town and ruins of Hierapolis, or even check out the nearby hotel that had roman ruins at the bottom of it’s swimming pool, but it wasn’t looking good.

The journey back was going to take at least 3 hours, there were no lights for much of it, and so if we stayed any great amount of time here, we’d be playing Russian roulette in the dark.

So we stayed for a while, marvelling at the view, dabbling our feet in the sticky paste and dodging the more tenacious of the old ladies. (I did by some napkins before you think I’m totally cold-hearted).

The food from the local rest stop was okay, not brilliant, b
ut we were in the middle of nowhere so there wasn’t too much choice. The people were very friendly, and enjoyed being filmed on the camera. I was baking hot, but most were decked out in suits and looking dustily respectable, and had huge smiles.

(Bearing in mind this was 7 years ago, maybe they’ll have swapped their slightly shabby suits for something from Saville Row after many hours of diligent embroidering.)

I never did get to see Hierapolis and its ruins, nor the funky sounding swimming pool. But on our wild-eyed arrival back in Kusadasi, I did get to meet an English woman with had also visited Pammukale a week earlier, but came back with two broken arms after slipping in one of the pools. Game gal for sticking out the holiday with both arms propped up on a framework that was coming out her plaster-encased chest.

So please, if you want to go there, and bizarrely I suggest that you do…

GO. BY. COACH.

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