Birvidik

From Kos it was a quick hop North via Kalymnos , Leros and Lipsos before cutting back to Turkey at Kusadasi so that we could visit Ephesus, one of the major classical sites, up there with Delphi. It is so popular, in fact, that there can be up to eight bloody great cruise ships moored in Kusadasi harbour at any one time, all ready to disgorge over a thousand people each into fleets of coaches to ferry them to Ephesus. Add to that the coaches from all the other tourist sites in the near (and not so near) vicinity and you can see that it can get just a teensy bit crowded.

Given the popularity of the site, it was strange then that there appeared to be only one set of toilets in the whole 3km x 2 km site. To be fair, there was a communal Roman toilet in the middle of the site (See photos), but the sewer wasn't connected and anyway, they'd run out of sponges on sticks for the post-defecatory ablutions.

Public transport to the site was also fairly sparse, consisting of buses or dolmuses that dropped you off on the main road at the turning for Ephesus. It was a pleasant enough stroll the two kilometres or so through the countryside to the site entrance, although if you'd believed the taxi drivers that swarmed round you when you got off the dolmus, you'd have thought it was the equivalent of crossing the Sahara on foot.

Ephesus was a major port in Roman times, and it shows in the grandeur and scale of the place. We took a hint from Stuart and Steph and timed our visit to coincide with the extended lunches provided for all the tour groups. It was packed when we arrived at about 11:30, but by one o'clock it was virtually deserted and remained so.

The signs and notices all around had great screeds on them in Turkish and what purported to be English. It wasn't the sort of cod-English and appalling translations that returning travellers recount at dinner parties with an air of smug, patronising superiority. These signs were in very erudite English - so erudite, in fact, that we couldn't understand it. They either used very obscure technical English or they had just Anglicised technical Turkish or Greek words. To give you a flavour: "In front of the apse stood an altar, which eventually yielded to a semicircular synthronos. The substructure of the ambos is bounded by the templon. The chapel-like pastopheries show apsidal characteristics and have a narrow narthex added." Well all I can say is that had to sit on my synthronos and ponder the mysteries of the narthex while seeing if I could find anything to eat in the pastopheries.

Much play is made of St. Paul's visit to Ephesus. As a kid I'd had to suffer interminable, droning sermons reading out his epistles to the Ephesians, but I'd no idea who or what they were and cared even less. Here it was brought to life. Ephesus was a centre for the worship of the Goddess Artemis, and made a substantial amount of money out of this, thankyou very much.

Craftsmen such as stonemasons and silversmiths made a tidy living flogging effigies of Artemis and similar tat to the pilgrims and devotees that visited in their thousands. I think their descendants are keeping up the family tradition in the innumerable stalls lining both approaches to the site. When they heard that Paul was preaching one God and that idols made by man could not be Gods and should not be worshipped, they saw a bit of a cloud on the business horizon. I mean - Statues and stuff, that's real craftsmanship. Any old tinpot stone-chipper can knock out a cross.

A silversmith called Demetrious turned out to be a Roman forerunner of the President of the Chamber of Commerce. When Paul was due to preach in the large amphitheatre, Demetrious rounded up all the artisans who descended on the place in their thousands (I told you it was big business). They drowned Paul out with chants of "Artemis is Great! Artemis is Great!" and proceeded to wrap things up with a good riot. All of this, we feel, gives support and credence to those of us bemoaning the inexorable decline in the quality of philosophical discourse today. The Classical Era truly was a golden age

They won, and Paul was told to sling his hook by the city authorities and went away to irritate the Macedonians. Life, and business, went on as normal for the Ephesians and the trinket shops continued doing a roaring trade. Now you wouldn't get that sort of exploitation of the gullible and the credulous from a monotheistic religion, would you?

Talking of monotheistic religions, we overheard a couple of tour guides talking to each other. Apparently, guide A had been showing round a group of Americans from a cruise ship and had got as far as the amphitheatre. She began the story of Paul's preaching there, outlined above, and was thrown off her stride somewhat when one of her charges emitted a strangled cry and fell to his knees crying "Lord, Brother Paul, I feel your presence here!" This set off about twenty others, some of whom started writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues (or 'gibberish' as we ex-scientists call it). The cruise company hadn't told her that the group were mainly evangelists from the American bible belt. This, of course, provoked the interest of the rest of the tourists much more than a bunch of old ruins did and she and her charges soon became hemmed in on all sides by rubber-neckers. She didn't know where to put herself and just whistled nonchalantly and pretended she'd never seen these strange people before in her life.

I just wish we'd been there at the time. We could have started all the onlookers up chanting "Artemis is Great! Artemis is Great!" and drowned the evangelists out.

We got our come-uppance for our heretical frivolity the next day when a thunderstorm hit the marina. We weren't unduly worried as we were secured to a concrete quay at the bow and had a strong line out the stern, pulled tight to the marina's heavy mooring blocks. The rain fell in torrents so that it was impossible to see one end of the boat from the other and the wind built up to an impressive strength. We took all the cushions and retired below to snug it out. Smug turned to 'ooh - that doesn't look right' when Bob looked out of the window during a particularly evil gust and saw that we were alongside a boat that was originally about eight metres away and were moving forwards relative to it. As he dived for the hatch there was a resounding bang and a crunch from the bow as it ploughed into the concrete quay, taking a chunk out of it (the bow, not the quay).

We ran on deck, started the engine and went astern to pull us off the quay. Then we plonked fenders in the most needed spots and attended to the stern line. It had gone completely slack. Bob pulled on it, expecting to find a loose end, but it gradually pulled up tight and, with aid of our biggest winch, we pulled in about six metres of line and pulled us back into the right position. We have no idea what happened there. We suspect that the lines had been crossed at some point and that a loop had been trapped somewhere and had pulled through with the massive load on it. Luckily, Aegean thunderstorms only hang around for an hour or two. Shouldn't take me long to patch up the bow.

Our confidence in the shelter and security of the marina somewhat undermined, we set off the next day for a few anchorages before going back into Greece at Khios.

There's another story.