The Kindness of Strangers and Hidden Roman Ruins: Visiting Üzümlü and Cadianda near Fethiye, Turkey
A stranger, a very random trip and exploring the lost ruins of Cadianda in Üzümlü, Turkey
So, let me tell you how we ended up in a half-buried Roman amphitheatre, in the middle of a Turkish forest, listening to opera with a waiter from a local restaurant we’d met a few days earlier...
As those of you who know us or have been following these blogs will know, for the first three months of each year, for the last three years, we have spent our time residing in a literal ghost town in Turkey (and before you say it, no, the people don’t move out every year in anticipation of my arrival, it was already a ghost town).
The details of exactly why we choose to spend our time here and what it's like to live in a place that looks suspiciously like the set of a 1930’s Universal Horror movie, are covered in the post above. One of the major things that we stress in this post is the almost disarming friendliness of the locals.
It seems that after a few weeks of seeing me traipse the two miles back and forth from our house to the village to buy 5-litre bottles of water and carry them back again, the locals have decided that we are part of the village and often stop to say hello, have a random chat or if they are going that way, offer a lift back up the hill to me and my supply of drinking water.
So unrestrained is the open, big smiling friendliness of our neighbours that it sometimes makes you feel like a bad person.
Suspicious minds
Unfortunately, years of living in the UK and other places where a certain amount of suspicion of your fellow man is ingrained and friendly greetings at the bus stop of, “Ee arr yo, innit yo, bust me a dollar” actually translate as an attempted mugging (once you manage to interpret the yelped string of random vowel sounds into some semblance of a coherent sentence).
As it turned out, my inability to understand what my track-suited companion was on about actually helped me avoid being mugged. I didn’t hand over my wallet as I was too busy trying to work out what this creature was trying to communicate.
This general suspicion for others and perennial state of being ‘on guard’ isn’t pleasant but it’s not entirely unjustified.
This is basically what my bus stop mugger looked like.
A Couple of Bad Experiences
We have been the victims of a few unpleasant experiences on our travels. This includes the time in Malaysia that we woke up in a hotel room to find a local prostitute standing at the end of the bed going through my pockets.
My half asleep and brilliantly British response to this was to simply shout “Excuse me!” before chasing her, stark naked (me, not her) out of the room, down the corridor and into the hotel lobby where I was met by two sleeping and then justifiably alarmed security guards.
The fact that she only got away with some money and a pair of bus tickets didn’t stop me from looking slantwise at every mildly suspicious-looking individual for the remainder of our trip.
We always have a healthy level of suspicion.
Worse than this was when our house was burgled in Zambia. When I say ‘burgled’, I mean completely and utterly cleaned out.
As well as the usual high-value items, the perps stole the cushions from the sofa, bed linen and blankets, a lot of our clothes, a mattress, our fridge (despite our house being in a compound surrounded by a ten-foot wall), stationary and even salt, pepper and cooking oil. In one room they'd even unscrewed the lightbulbs.
When they rob you there, they don’t mess about. I swear they’d have taken the paint from the walls if they could have gotten it off, the bastards.
Whilst in retrospect I now look back and think, if someone is so desperately poor that they need to steal salt and a half-used bottle of cooking oil then their actions are, to a small degree at least, justified by their desperation, I was nowhere near as forgiving at the time.
If only the robbers had limited themselves to just a sack like this guy.
Instead, I spent the entirety of the next month suspecting everyone in the area of being somehow involved in the conspiracy, to the extent that I eyed a man in the queue at the market for a whole minute just because he was wearing a black shirt that could possibly once have been mine. All whilst kicking myself repeatedly (I’m just that flexible) for being so trusting and allowing my guard to slip in the first place.
This isn’t to mention the numerous scams, ripoffs and generally nefarious cheating activities that we’ve encountered as we’ve travelled (like the guesthouse that wanted to charge us an extra fee if we wanted ‘luxuries’ like sheets and pillows on our bed. A situation we got around by buttoning all of my shirts together and refusing to pay the extortionate cost on principle).
This child could basically be me.
As you can see, travel isn’t all gorgeous landscapes with model-esque people posing in front of them, but then if you’ve been following this blog for a while, y’all know that already. And the benefits of travel definitely outweigh a few crappy experiences.
The unfortunate result of this is that despite wanting to be open and welcoming to everyone we meet, inviting new experiences and simply operating on trust (for which we are usually massively rewarded) I seem to be hardwired behind that hippyish optimism to have a healthy level of suspicion. Of everyone. Even you...
So, when our waiter at a local restaurant in the Turkish ghost town offered to take us out on a trip with him, my spider-sense immediately started tingling.
The restaurant itself is a popular place in Kayaköy called Çin Bal, which incidentally, has no menu but instead a fridge like a butcher's window, from which you simply select which meat and tell them how many kilos you fancy.
Vegetarians, all is not lost! If you, like Sasha, are a herbivore (she is mostly, apart from the rare chicken-kebab moment of weakness), you can select from a range of vegetarian mezzes.
And you can always, always splurge on a Turkish breakfast which is extremely vegetarian friendly.
You can then choose to have them cook it or BBQ it yourself at your table, which most Turkish customers seem to do (but which, as the miserable bastard I am, I refuse to do as to me it defeats the entire purpose of going out to a restaurant, seen as how if I'm going to cook it I might as well have stayed at home and done it my f@%king self).
What was particularly interesting about this place, aside from the food (which was great by the way) was the waiter.
The Promise Of An Unusual Adventure
After chatting to us for a few minutes after the meal, he asked if we had ever been to what sounded to my untrained ear like a place called "UZUMALAHMUH". Obviously we said no, to which he replied with the unexpected response of: "Okay on Wednesday I’ll take you. You don't pay, I go every week anyway during the day for working".
He said this not as if it was an invitation or something we might like to think about but as a statement of fact. He will take us and we will go to Uzumala-wherever-it was.
In Sasha’s head, this was an opportunity to make a friend and visit a brand new area, in my head, it was a completely random offer, which I was unable to properly hear over the sound of alarm bells going off.
Sasha’s life motto.
The waiter, whose name we found out was Eason, was politely insistent and since we fancied a bit of a trip and are both fearlessly adventurous types we said:
”Er…Maybe.”
As it happened, we left the restaurant without confirming anything, swapping numbers or sharing our address with the waiter. So much for that. As such, we reasoned, we might be able to consider the offer and take him up on it a few weeks later if we got to know him better and investigated where the place he intended to take us to actually was.
Nothing had been agreed, let alone set in stone, and since no contact information was exchanged that would be the last we heard of it until we came back to the restaurant again.
This photo sums up how differently we feel about random adventures with strangers.
Or so we thought.
A few days later we were sitting outside the house when someone started shouting from the road below. We looked over to investigate and sure enough, there was Eason on his motorbike.
Now, if you’ve been reading this so far and thinking ‘why are you being so guarded?’ just consider this scenario for a moment. You go to a restaurant, the waiter tells you that he is going to take you out and despite you never revealing where you live, a few days later he turns up at your door. Am I still the only one who would be just a little unnerved?
It turned out that Eason had done some detective work, asking around the village to find out where we lived (presumably by asking “where does that handsome chap who carries the water every day actually live?”)
Guess we stand out in a village like this.
Unbeknownst to us, by virtue of not having pissed anyone off, we seemed to have become honorary villagers. As such, this being a village where everyone knows everyone, exactly where we lived was not only common knowledge, but this information was considered to be in the public domain and could be happily shared at the first enquiry.
Having acquired this information our friendly neighbourhood waiter and amateur tour guide decided to visit us and make good on his offer of an impromptu trip.
In his mind, as he explained later, it was imperative that he find us and do as he had said because he had promised and a promise is a promise. Never mind that we hadn’t agreed to it or shared where we lived, he wanted to stick to his word. So he just turned up at our house on the Wednesday morning with a motorbike, a cheery disposition and calls of “Let’s go!”
I remained unconvinced.
Still somewhat unsure about this, I clarified we wouldn't be going on any trip that involved three to a motorbike and that there was no way either of us would be getting onto the bike and leaving the other behind whilst he sped off into the distance. Eason paused, frowned and mused over the problem.
He explained that his car had broken down a few days prior and so he couldn’t use it, but seeing my point, simply smiled and said, “We cannot go on the bike. We will all go together. Wait and I will get a car”.
When I asked exactly where he was going to ‘get a car’ from, since his had broken down, he laughed, slapped me on the shoulder and reassured me that, “This is my village. Every car is my car." To me, this meant that either the village was extremely close-knit and he would simply borrow a car for this random excursion at a moment’s notice, or that he was a highly-skilled car thief.
Which car belongs to Eason? Turns out, all of them.
With that, he sped off on his motorbike, promising to meet us in half an hour, leaving Sasha and I to look at each other bewildered and use the half-hour to cancel any plans we might have had and pack for a day out.
It is interesting to note that no discussion of whether we wanted to go, or indeed, where we would be going at all ever took place. After all, he had promised.
At this point, we had a choice. Go with the stranger or go with the suspicion. And this is the crux of the matter: potentially dangerous as it may be, at some junctures you just have to make the decision to trust people and go with it.
I order you to go with the stranger.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked myself as I pictured us being sold to ISIS or served to the customers in the restaurant the following week...
Eason returned as promised half an hour later with a randomly acquired car and having decided to take the gamble we hopped in to go off to who-knew-where to do who-knew-what with who-knew-whom. Try saying that twice fast when you’re p*ssed.
Looking for other things to do in Turkey (other than going on an adventure with a stranger?) Check out our guide to what you can do in Istanbul!
A Beautiful Journey To Üzümlü
It turned out that the place we were headed to was called Üzümlü and was about 40 minutes away. It also turned out that Eason didn't, in fact, go there for 'working' at all but for 'walking' (I had, predictably, misheard him the first time).
He drove us up into the mountains which were absolutely jaw-dropping, to the tiny picturesque village of Üzümlü.
Around two miles from the village, he stopped by the forest and we all merrily set off for a hike in the woods. Me, Sash and the waiter from the restaurant two days ago. Yes, it sounded odd to me too.
The presence of a man charged with collecting money for entry to the trails was encouraging to me as it confirmed that this was an official trail and at least the ‘random woods’ element of ‘a random excursion into random woods with a random guy’ was eliminated.
As it turned out Eason came here to walk on his own around three times a week. The guy at the kiosk recognised him and was so delighted that he had brought some people along with him this time that he waived the entry fee altogether and wished us a pleasant trip instead.
The impression we got was that Eason genuinely just wanted to make some new friends and share the things he enjoyed with them, part of which involved showing us his favourite walking trails.
The Ruins of Cadianda
What we didn't realise until we actually saw them, was that in the middle of the forest he had taken us to (and in which we were completely alone), lay the ruins of a Hellenistic/Roman town called Cadianda (also known as Kadyanda in Turkish) half-buried beneath the pine needles and roots.
Now, I should say at this point that near to where I used to live in Glossop, there is also a site that is allegedly a ‘Roman ruin’ called Melandra Castle. It is actually a source of great amusement when tourists turn up asking for directions to what is essentially a few rocks on a croft. A piece of archaeology so stunningly banal that you could literally trip over it and never realise it was even there.
Cadianda is definitely not that.
Emerging from this forest were proper, full-on ruins. I’m talking entire amphitheatres and public baths beautifully preserved on top of a mountain in the middle of the woods. We were both stunned and Eason absolutely beamed with pride at our obvious delight at this unexpected treat. We spent several hours wandering through the pine forest surrounded by beautiful scenery, exploring the ruins of Cadianda and finding out a little more about our new friend.
At one point Eason lay down in the ruins of the old theatre and decided to start playing opera at full volume through his phone. And why not? It wasn’t like he was going to disturb anyone: there wasn’t another soul for miles around.
He explained that this was one of his favourite things to do. Come out to the ruins, play his music and imagine the daily lives of the people who once lived here. What they might have watched in the theatre, the events and sports that might have taken place and what their lives might have been like as they moved between the theatre, the bathhouse and the market. All the stories and intrigues of those that lived in this place so many years ago.
Was it surreal? Yes, but it was also touching and an experience. In some ways, it felt like quite a privilege, not just to see this chunk of history in such a beautiful setting that we never suspected was there, but to also be invited to experience someone’s private hobby and have them feel comfortable enough to share it with us.
After this, we drove back to explore Üzümlü for a while whilst Eason caught up with a friend in the village and then we drove back, bought him lunch at a lokanta and went home. Quite the random day.
Why you should visit Cadianda/Kadyanda
Even if you don’t have a random opera-loving Turkish waiter friend to take you, Cadianda is definitely worth a visit for a number of reasons (and there are ways to get there that don't involve waiting for an invite).
Before we even get to the ruins, it is worth mentioning that Cadianda is well worth a visit just for the beauty, tranquillity and temperature of the place.
We visited Cadianda during the winter (which in Turkey is, for the most part, cold, but dry) and it was a beautifully fresh atmosphere. In the summer months, however, a visit to this cool mountain pine forest can be a godsend, offering as it does a perfect breather from the sometimes oppressive heat in nearby Fethiye and Hisaronu.
Whilst this might seem a strange selling point, trust me when I say that a wander around Cadianda is a far more pleasant experience than a visit to other historical sites in the area which, during the height of summer, offer all the invigorating coolness of a refreshing lava bath.
In addition to keeping the place cool, being at elevation also gives Cadianda an added layer of attraction as it offers stunning views of the surrounding areas. We particularly recommend a stop at ‘the Heroon’ as a great place for a picnic, but there are a number of points along the trail from which you can admire the gorgeous snow-capped mountains (in winter) and panoramic views across Fethiye.
For the detail-oriented amongst you who are burning to know exactly what can be found at Cadianda, the Wikipedia page about the area helpfully reproduces the text of the sign outside the ancient site in full. The basic gist of which is that whilst the settlement here dates back to around 3000 BC, the ruins on the surface are from the 5th Century BC. Oddly, some websites seem to report this with an air of disappointment as if somehow, being over two thousand years old is just not quite not old enough…
A stroll around Cadianda will allow you to see the necropolis, public baths, stadium and theatre. There are also ruins of what is thought to have been a temple to an unknown god. All of which is well worth seeing and whilst the ruins themselves are not as uncovered and maintained as some other sites, this in itself adds to the charm of the whole place.
The lack of fenced-off paths, well-polished signs loaded with information and the fact that some of the ruins are half swallowed up in greenery and seem to be in the process of being reclaimed by the forest, give Cadianda a brilliantly enchanted and ‘undiscovered’ feel, only enhanced by the fact that as a less-visited attraction, the entire site is often deathly quiet and mostly deserted.
Like us, many other visitors report having the Cadianda’s ruins virtually to themselves.
Getting to Cadianda/Kadyanda
At around 25km from the town of Fethiye and 7km from Üzümlü village, Cadianda is easily accessible. If you don’t have a car or live in a village where you can borrow one on a whim because “every car is your car” then simply follow the road signs from Fethiye to Üzümlü and the brown signs for Cadianda once you begin to approach Üzümlü.
If travelling by public transport, we would recommend getting one of several dolmus (local buses) that leave Fethiye for Üzümlü each day and then taking a taxi from Üzümlü village to Cadianda or if you are up for a hike, taking the walk up to the site under your own steam.
You should bear in mind that whilst the distance to Cadianda isn’t that far, this will be a mostly uphill journey (remember what I said about the Turkish summer?). However, the reward for your exertions is that you will pass three tombs with inscriptions that are well worth seeing on the way.
Ostensibly, the charge to get into the site is 5TL but based on our own experience and what I have read since it seems the attendant isn’t too interested in collecting this and would much rather have a chat with visitors.
A number of tourists have reported that he waived the fee and instead invited them to share a free cup of tea with him whilst he explained some of the history of Cadianda, which if you ask me, would be worth well more than 5TL anyway.
Nearby Üzümlü village is also a picturesque little gem and well worth a visit in its own right.
From groups of old men playing backgammon and drinking tea from tulip glasses to the firin (local bakery), it is a great place to stop off if you fancy a snack and a quiet slice of traditional village life, Turkish style.
We’ve made friends all over Turkey! What’s the best thing about trusting people when you are travelling?
Looking for more travel inspiration? Click here to discover more of our favourite places around the world.
If you liked this post, Pin it!
Looking for more on Turkey?
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM
@MOGANDDOGTRAVELS
