Hotel Dorici, Kusadasi, 26th October 1995
Caged chickens, protesting sheep, dripping fish, drifts of sunflower seeds and rice, great slabs of white cheese, and bulging sacks of tobacco were sold by people with weathered mahogany faces in the cacophony of Söke market yesterday. Cruise ships gleamed pristinely in Kusdadaci harbour. Worlds separated by 15 miles and 150 years.
There were six ships in this morning – Stella Solaris, Stella Marais II, Crown Odyssey, Triton, R6 and Stena Okenis – 50 coaches waited for them in the low early sun. Some passengers disembarked with luggage, a few days ashore or the end of a cruise, perhaps. Most were here for a day trip to the Greco-Roman remains at Ephesus, 12 miles away; then on a further 100 miles to the white travertine terraces and Roman spa city of Hierapolis at Pamukkale.
I watched the crew of the fishing boat, Druc Reis I, unloading its scanty catch before breakfast. A winch hauled a seemingly endless skein of fine red and green net up over a pulley, the fish falling in a shower of sliver splinters on the quayside. Fish caught in the mesh were shaken free, spattering the fishermen with a fine spangling of scales as they fed the net into neat piles. Can this meagre harvest provide a livelihood for all of them?