Things I've Loved About Turkey

We will be leaving Turkey tomorrow, so it's time for a pictograph wrap-up of things I liked especially.

Turkish beer

Milky ice-cream

Poppies growing up from between rocks

Ancient ruins - especially the Library at Ephesus

Turkish coffee

Ayran - yogurt you can drink

Watermelon chunks sold from wagons

Meze - any meze is good meze

Cobblestoned laneways

Old men playing backgammon EVERYwhere

Simit - Turkish bagels sold from wagons EVERYwhere - 50 Australian cents

Turkish tea in a glass that's too hot to hold

Mastic ice-cream (looks like a soft-serve but is actually "chewy" - you can bite into it and it stretches out like mozzarella)

Cappadocia

Künefe - sweet cheese dessert

Cute tram in Istaklal Avenue 

The Grand Bazaar

Spice market

Syrup donuts

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Food and Culture Day in Cappadocia

When our travel agent asked whether we would be interested in including a Food & Culture Tour while in Cappadocia, we had no hesitation in saying yes.  We have previously done half and whole-day cooking classes in Italy and have enjoyed the experience very much.  Although we didn't know what the "Culture" part of the tour would involve, we thought we would take the chance.

We were picked up from our hotel at 9:30am by Tolga, who is a trained chef and is the manager of Cappadocia Home Cooking.  He drove us to his home, where we met his wife Toba, then made a short walking tour of his village, which is smaller than the one where we are staying but also was historically a cave town.  Cave dwellings are still in evidence and quite possibly could be converted to places of accommodation in the future. 

As we walked, Tolga explained that this is a farming village and people grow most of the food they need for their families, either in their own back garden and/or on separate plots they own elsewhere.  He greeted many villagers along the way and many wanted to have a quick chat - everyone knows everyone, everyone grew up here and it's clearly a very happy place to be.  When we passed the local school, I asked whether Tolga had attended that school - "Of course!" he said. "Also my father and my grandfather." That's the way it is in his tiny village.  

We passed a small park with tables and chairs - Tolga said the women of the village gather in the park daily, with their samovars and snacks to chat about life, their children and perhaps even their husbands.  We also were privileged to be allowed to visit the 500-year old village mosque, where the young immam was very kind to us and Tolga explained how the observant Muslim men come to pray five times each day in response to the call across the village by the imam.

Returning to Tolga's home, we were shown around - it was decorated in a very traditional Turkish style, with embroidered handiwork on the bed linen and low cushioned seating around the communal dining table. Handcrafts, artwork and decorations were also typically Turkish.  It was all very pretty and the family had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to organise their surroundings in an authentic way.

Together with Hawa, who is Tolga's mother, we prepared the lunch meal of bulgur and tomato soup, seasoned rice wrapped in vine leaves (dolma), baked eggplants stuffed with minced meat and vegetables, lentil rolls, a "palate-cleanser" of stewed strawberries with grape molasses, yogurt and feta, Turkish ravioli in yogurt sauce garnished with seasoned oil and sumac, pickled vegetables, fresh salad and a dessert called dolaz which was made of cooked flour, egg and milk, topped with honeycomb from Tolga's own hives.  The yogurt and feta cheese were made with milk from the family's cows and all the fruit and vegetables were grown organically in the family's back yard or nearby plot.  It was certainly a feast.

After enjoying Turkish coffee outdoors while gazing across the valley which is their next-door neighbourhood, it was time to take final photos, say fond farewells to the family and be driven by Tolga to a nearby winery for a quick pitstop tour and tasting of Cappadocian wines before being returned to the hotel.

Needless to say, dinner was not required that evening.

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Not All Ruins and Beaches

We have been travelling in Turkey for almost three weeks and after visiting Istanbul, various ancient ruins and some coastal beach resorts, we have come off the beaten track to Göreme, one of many tiny villages in rural Cappadocia.  Raise your hand if you've heard of Göreme . . .  waiting . . . waiting . . . no, neither had we.

Today there are already more than 125 places of accommodation and dozens of hot-air ballooning sites in Göreme alone and my guess is that this place will continue to absolutely boom into the future as more and more people start hearing about it and want to explore the stark natural beauty of this stunning UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Yesterday we started by visiting the Open Air Museum, which is essentially a group of underground Christian churches, nunneries and monasteries, whose walls are painted with Biblical frescoes.  Unfortunately, many of these wall paintings have been marred (allegedly) by the scratching and scraping of bored young sheep herders many years ago, who would have been oblivious to their historical value and lacked appreciation of their religious importance.  These places of worship were originally built before the 4th century and the frescoes of the Last Supper and other Bible stories adorn the walls and ceilings throughout. Well worth a visit.  No shots of the museum because photography is not permitted.

Following the museum visit, we asked if we might be taken to see some local crafts. We were first taken to a centuries' old family-run ceramics workshop where the owner, Mr Ali, introduced us to his cousin Rambo (I kid you not) turning the ancient pottery wheel to create some modern-day ceramics in the old tradition. While that was very interesting to watch, I wanted a hands-on experience in the true Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore style, so Rambo let me play with a lump of clay and didn't mind at all when I completely buggered up the bowl he was carefully guiding me to create.  We laughed (me, more than he) and moved on to the showroom (of course) where we were "under no pressure, sir and madam" to purchase from Mr Ali's collection.

After lunch, it was on to watch the ancient art of carpet-weaving being practised by a new generation of women.  The company's proprietor was very happy to show us how the beautiful rugs, kilims and carpets are made, starting with the soaking in boiling water of the silk cocoons and the subsequent spinning of the fibre into reels of thread suitable for dyeing and then weaving.  It was absolutely fascinating and certainly opened our eyes to a process we had never imagined. Walking down the cobblestoned laneways of Turkey over the last weeks and having seen probably hundreds of carpet shops (from the outside), we have been quite cynical about the true origin of some of these floor coverings. We still retain that cynicism in large part, but it's true to say that many of them really are made locally.  We were told that this particular company we were visiting supplies looms to 1400 local women who work to make rugs in their own homes and, subsidised by the Turkish government, receive 86% of the price paid when the carpet is sold.  Believe it if you choose (we think it's probably true).

Today, after the hot-air balloon flight, we were again collected for more adventure and taken to the much-anticipated underground city of Kaymakli. 

Back in Melbourne a few weeks ago I had watched a YouTube documentary of another underground city, Derinkuyu - our guide today told us there are around 35 such cities under Cappadocia, mostly built over periods of 50 or 60 years of additions and modifications to hide villagers from marauding and pillaging enemies. More info about Kaymakli is available at this website.  It's fascinating to read about, and even more fascinating to visit this honeycomb maze of a city of narrow corridors where you have to stoop down very low, almost holding your ankles so you can move along the low-ceilinged passages.  Here are some rubbishy photos which don't do it justice.... 

Also today we visited Pigeon Valley where in the past and still today, local villagers breed and keep pigeons for their poop, using this as valuable fertiliser for their crops. 

Finally today we went to a small marbling workshop, where the ancient art of marbling paper and silks is practised by a very skilled artisan.  The process involves making a mixture of water and a special type of glue, then dripping various coloured paints into the water and swirling them around with a fine needle. The piece of paper or silk is then laid over the surface of the water and dragged across and out to create the final product as if by magic. 

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Up Up and Away

It's 3:45 am and the alarm goes off. A few seconds later D1's alarm goes off, and before they both stop buzzing, the guy on the reception desk does his job and places the requested wake up call. Why you ask, are we getting up at this time of the morning in far away Göreme in Cappadocia? The answer is simple, it's the day of our long awaited hot air balloon flight (not ride, but flight if you please) over the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia.

The mini-bus arrives at 4:05 am and we are taken to the offices of the balloon company, where there are at least 100 people eating pastries and drinking tea before being assigned to a pilot and taken in another mini-bus to our almost inflated balloon about 15 minutes out of town.

In no time, all 14 of us are wedged into the giant fruit basket and greeted by our pilot Turgut, who assures us that he knows what he is doing even though this will be his first flight. An American lady next to us just about faints, and Turgut says "only joking" to the great relief of all those who believed him in the first place. By this time the sun is rising rapidly in the east and balloons are taking to the air from every piece of flat ground all around us.

Only when we are up about 5000 feet above sea level can we see the number of balloons in the air, and there has to be at least 100. The morning air is very still, there is practically no breeze to speak of, and the scenery is stunning in every direction. As we float along at a a very leisurely pace, the American woman has managed to keep her breakfast down, the French lady in another corner of the giant fruit basket is sitting down on the floor too petrified to look over the edge, and Turgut is having a ball descending down to tree top level and manoeuvring his way along the numerous gullies and gorges.

We also fly past the town of Uchisar close enough to make out all the details of the buildings in this very old area of Cappadocia before once again starting our descent, this time for a landing, which Turgut says with some confidence "will be on back of trailer, no need for brace position"

And true to his word, he lands the balloon on the back of the waiting trailer after a two hour flight, and receives a round of applause from all those in the giant fruit basket, except the American woman who is close to throwing up, and the French woman who is still hunkered down on the floor of the basket. Once out of the basket and on the ground, there's drinks and cake to be shared, the merchandise table appears, and Turgut is already on his second re-run of the home movie he made of our flight. 

All in all a great experience, and something every visitor to Cappadocia should do on a fine morning, remembering that you have to get up at 3:45 am. We were very comfortably back at our hotel by 8:15 am and chowing down on breakfast in readiness for the rest of the day.

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Cappadocia

We travelled to the Turkish region of Cappadocia on the recommendation of our travel agent and after speaking to friends who had been here.  We are staying in Göreme, a town between two ancient volcanoes which erupted many millions of years ago, leaving sedimentary rock forms in the shape of hundreds of spectacular pillars and mushroom-like forms known as "fairy chimneys". People of the villages in the Cappadocia region carved out houses, churches and monasteries from the soft rocks of volcanic deposits. 

This area was only properly "re-discovered" as recently as the 1960s and has been developed into a thriving tourist destination since then, with many of the caves still being used as homes here until the 1970s and much of the land around is even now still being farmed by small landholders who live locally.  Grape vines are in evidence here, as well as wheat fields, apricot trees and potatoes are grown, also - the volcanic ash in the soil, combined with fertiliser made from pigeon poop from hundreds of thousands of the birds kept here for the purpose, make ideal growing conditions for these crops.

Enough facts as background! Here, now, are some of the photos we have taken during our time in this fascinating region, where we are staying in a cave hotel.  We tried to take some shots of the inside of our rooms here, but it's really hard to get a good angle.  The website is your best bet, so here is the link.

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Antalya

Sometimes, despite what the philosophers say, it actually IS about the destination, not the journey.  We were dutifully collected at the appointed time from our hotel in Kas by our driver who delivered us to Antalya without event, about 2.5 hours later.  He didn't speak to us, which has happened with other drivers and always leaves us wondering whether it's because he doesn't speak English or he's sullen or he actually does speak English but thinks it's not his job to chat to us. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that they drive safely with their attention to the road ahead, so that's all ok. 

The drive to Antalya was very pretty, with the mountains making a wonderful backdrop to the magnificent coastal views. I don't think I've ever been to a city where you can look out to the sea and instead of seeing the endless horizon, you see mountains.

Antalya is quite a big city, with a population of about two million.  It's divided into the Old City and the New City, with each being completely different.  Our driver had a real problem finding our hotel in the Old City - he stopped and asked directions about six or seven times.  We were relaxed about it, because (a) we could sit back in airconditioned comfort knowing we'd get there eventually, (b) we weren't the ones driving and navigating and (c) we weren't lugging suitcases up and down cobblestoned streets in 35 degrees hoping against hope that our hotel would suddenly appear around the next corner. Turns out that there are two hotels with almost identical names, so we went around in circles and up blind alleys a few times, despite protracted animated conversations (with hand gestures) between our driver and several locals. Antalya is also a very bustling large city, quite a foreign concept to our driver from Kas, who was out of his depth and probably struggling to stay calm.  No-one was more relieved than he was, to leave us at the front door of our hotel - he almost burned rubber reversing back out of the laneway on his way back to the quiet life in Kas.

The old part of Antalya is a maze of hilly narrow thoroughfares lined with carpet (and other) shops, all of which wind down to a very picturesque harbour full of fake pirate ships - we think these relate to olden times off the coast of Turkey, when the waters were a dangerous place to travel, due to roaming pirates looting and plundering.  The pirate ships in Antalya harbour are decked out like something from the Caribbean movies and take tourists on journeys around the port area.

We've enjoyed the past few days here and have found people to be very friendly.  Yesterday we went with the hotel's driver on a tour of the local waterfalls, both of which were spectacular. Along the way, he chatted happily about Antalya and was very interested to hear about Australia. He was horrified about the price of things in Oz (so are we....).

The Upper Duden waterfall is 15m high and 20m wide and set in a pretty valley. A natural cave has formed behind the falls and it is possible to wander through the cave and watch the cascades from behind. There are restaurants, boardwalks and picnic tables in the gardens immediately surrounding the falls to help make the most of this gorgeous scenic spot.

The Kursunlu waterfalls are set in a serene location amongst forested surrounds. It felt very relaxing to be so close to a big city, yet so far from the hubbub of people and traffic.

Returning to our hotel, it was spa time downstairs. For me this was an especially wonderful experience, as my attendant masseuse was a 6'2" gorgeous dark-haired, dark-eyed young man from the Turkish version of Central Casting, wearing only a towel around his waist as he lathered me up, scrubbed me down, massaged oil into my aching bits and released me back to the world after two hours of his undivided attention. D2 decided to spend the time reading and napping in the hotel room, so we'll never know who would have looked after him, in the spa.

Today we went on a trip to the local market; we do love markets, and it's hard not to feel a bit jealous about the quantity and quality of the fresh fruit and veg available to the locals at prices a fraction of what they are in Oz. Sometimes we have to question if we do live in the lucky country.

We've spent quite a lot of our time in Antalya lying on sun lounges by the hotel pool, reading and sipping drinks with little umbrellas or fancy garnishes in them.  

The weather has been perfect, as it pretty much has been since we arrived in Turkey, so we've been very lucky.  Tomorrow morning we will be collected from the hotel by another driver and taken to the airport for our trip to Ankara and our next driver who will take us to Cappadocia.

This is where we didn't get anything tattooed or pierced.

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