Final thoughts on Turkey

I believe that it is impossible to see much of a country in a couple of weeks. You can visit some cities, see some interesting sight, eat some good food, and in general have a nice vacation. But in a country as big as, and with a culture as diverse as, and a terrain as variable as Turkey enjoys, it would be hubris to say that we did anything but scratch the surface of the country. I can say that I went in reluctantly (much like I did a year or so ago to Cambodia) and my expectations were wildly exceeded.

There were certainly some things that really annoyed me. The relentless touting in the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul, the obvious price gouging of westerners, the bonhomie that had to be forced in various places.

And because there were not really too many Americans visiting Turkey these days, I was often approached in Dutch, German, or French. Usually in that order.

But on the good side, we did meet up with some genuinely nice, friendly, and generous people. We ate some outstanding food. And we saw some remnants of a history that is important to everyone in the world.


The Hagia Sofia in Istanbul was started in the 5th or 6th century. It is tired and worn out, but it is also something of a miracle that it is still standing. It has seen horrible things happen within its walls, and in the nearby neighborhoods. Read anything about The Fourth Crusade, or read Baudolino by Umberto Eco. All of mankind's history is here.


The painted churches of Cappidocia. One could argue that Christianity found its first widespread acceptance in Turkey. You can see the result of this in any one of the 600 or so painted rock churches here. (I think we saw 580 of those 600 churches)

When we were leaving Cappidocia, we talked with one of the owners of our hotel. I said we would tell our friends how much we liked being there, and said we would talk to our friends about visiting. She said that she would look for the. I replied that many of our friends are adventuresome enough to make a trip to Cappidocia. She laughed and said "Cappadocia is adventurous?" and from her standpoint, I guess it is not.

To her, it is just home.


The ancient ruins. Some say the first city in the world is Çatalhöyük in south central Anatolia. Cities are what made people people. So as I said above, the history of Turkey is all of our history.


and oddly enough, the animal life. We saw all these storks, we saw several Hoopoes, foxes, and also plenty of local dogs and cats.

During this trip I read Birds without Wings, a book by Louis de Bernieres. I could not have picked a better book for the last part of the trip. It really helped me to understand the sad recent history of the country.

In every city we visited, the muezzin called from the mosques the required five times a day. It always caught me up a little bit when I heard it. When we were in Istanbul, we were close enough to the Blue Mosque to hear their call to prayer. From a smaller, closer mosque, we heard another. It was like a call and response. Neither one stepped on the other. It was very exotic, and delightful to listen to.

While in Sirince, the call to prayer was inevitably greeted by the howl of all the street dogs. I am not sure if they just did not like that particular muezzin, or if they were raising their voices to God, but it was an interesting sound. Unforgettable, and it reminded you that we are not alone in this world.

It was an excellent trip. I would recommend a trip to Turkey for anyone ambulatory enough to do so. And for anyone interested in history, rugs, food, architecture, religion, or people.

A shave, baking bread, and a bus ride

My brother Matthew and his wife Laurie visited Turkey a couple of years ago. We visited some of the same places that they did, and it was nice to have someone recommend the place. He spoke longingly about the shaves that he would get at the Turkish barbers.

So I was looking forward to getting a real shave. This would be the first time I had outsources my shaving.

It is really quite nice. You could get use to this sort of treatment.

First, they lather you up luxuriously with a soft badger brush and warm suds. They lathered, and lathered, and lathered. I use a "wet shave" myself, but never have I lathered as long as they do. So that was nice.

Then they shave you with a straight razor. One of the guys squirted the blade with alcohol, and they lit it on fire. (Fire seems to be an integral part of shaving here)

It is great being shaved with a straight razor. They pull your nose and lips this way and that. When they are done, they start all over again. The second time, they don't lather quiet as long.

After the shave, they make a cotton ball wet with alcohol, light it on fire, and dab it around your ears to burn off you ear hair. Oh well...

After a certain amount of trimming with scissors and the blade, the strangest thing happened.

The barber grabbed what looked like a long piece of dental floss, held it in each hand and his mouth, making a triangle, and snapped it all over my face, pulling out all the small, stray hairs you have. Like between your eyebrows. He also shaped my eyebrows in the same manner.

That wasn't so much fun. I had to participate by pulling the skin on my face tight. Yipes!

Finally, you get a nice shoulder, arm, and hand massage.

And then you look like this:


We had some great bread in Sirince. Here are the women baking some in an outdoor, wood fired oven. I am sure it has a name, but I don't know what it is.


We did not take much public transportation while in Turkey. But the little buses that we did take were pretty nice. This one cost about YTL 2.5 per each, and we enjoyed it.


They almost never use the air conditioning or open the windows in the Turkish buses. That is because there is a superstition that you can die from the wind.



So I did not have to worry about my hat blowing off.

Toilets in Turkey

Many people have asked about toilet facilities in Turkey. There are a lot of stories about "squatters" or toilets that are not much more than holes in the floor with a place for each foot on either side of the hole.

But during our trip, we only saw three squatters the whole time. (two were at the airport)

But every toilet we say had these interesting nozzles:


Here is a close up:


The use is really obvious when you think about it.

Toilet paper is not used so much in Turkey. But these things are.

Here is how they work:


I guess you just turn it on, and clean yourself up.

A friend of mine, who has traveled a bit in Asia, is quite fond of these. He even wrote a polemic about them a while back. (cleaner, more efficient, less waste)

Myself, I like the standard western toilets.

Ancient Rome in Turkey

Little did I know that when we were going to visit Turkey that we were going to see such fantastic Greek and Roman ruins. I had a pretty good understanding of the region's history from about 1204, but before that I really had no clue. So it was fantastic to see some of the ruins that exist in Aegean Turkey.

I have photos to the right of Ephesus, (and here and here), Priene, Miletus, and Didyma. They were all fantastic - we drove from Sirince to the last three places in one day (we left about 10:00 and returned about 6:00). The driving, as the driving was in Cappadocia, was easy and uneventful. The gas was expensive, but that was about the most exciting thing about it.

Outside of Ephesus, which is an easy bus ride for the Cruise ships to get to, there were almost no people in these ruins. Even in Ephesus there were not too many people. We only had to wait a couple of minutes to have any one particular area to ourselves. The history in these places is truly astounding.

Doreen wondered aloud more that once what history was being taught in the schools in Turkey. We speculated that they are being taught that this is the history of the area, but not the history of their people. It may be that this is not being taught much at all. The driver who took us to and from the airport had never been to these ruins before he carted one of the other couples at the hotel on the same route we drove ourselves. That is sad, in a way.

Also, as you can see in many of the photos, a lot of the "stuff" is just lying around. It would have been extremely easy to put a small carved capital, or another piece into a backpack and walk out undisturbed. I would imagine that the Turks are losing many pieces this way. There is nobody watching too closely, nor does there seem to be anyone at the airport preventing the wholesale removal of antiquates. It is sort of sad.

In Selcuk, there are the remnants of an ancient aqueduct right in town. On top of each column was a nesting pair of storks:

When we ate in Selcuk, we went to a place recommended in one of the guide books. I thought it would be packed, but there was only one other couple (an older couple from Tucson) eating there. It is called Ejders, and the food was great.

Here is a photo of my "mixed grill":


There is a small museum in Selcuk that has some wonderful pieces, including bits of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World:

The only thing standing from that temple is one column in a lonely, muddy field. We did not walk out to it, but you can see it in my photos. There is a pair of storks nesting on top if it as well.

We did, of course, have to buy a rug. Below is the rug shop (owned by the cousin of the driver I mentioned above) where we stopped. When we walked in, the owned (the one on crutches) and his two helpers (one is sitting there next to Doreen. The other, his brother, had left to get tea) were lounging around on the rugs (inside). I don't think that they believed me when I said we were coming back.


I started off by telling him we were not interested in buying any rugs. He said fine, but wanted to show me some anyway. After about an hour or so were were getting ready to leave, as we really didn't want to buy any rugs. But he kept trying to find out which rugs we likes best. Needless to say, after a long and good natured set of negotiations, we did but a couple of small rugs.

the Onions takes on Gov Perry

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Don't give him any ideas, for goodness sake!

Hitchhikers

I think that I mentioned that when we were visiting the Songali painted churches that it started pouting down rain.

We had a rental car, and as we were getting in it to leave, these two women:


Stood by the car and asked (or rather gestured) for a ride.

Who could say no?

The younger one called her husband from her cell phone on the way home.

Now, isn't that something?

Avanos and Goreme

Avanos and Goreme were two cities not too far apart. But they have a much different feel to them. Avanos is a center for pottery (red clay pottery, we were told pointedly in Sirince)

Many of the shops were built into the rock, just as the homes were. Doreen wanted a couple of plates, so we bought them from this fellow:


Driving back, we had this great view of Uchisar:


Down in Goreme, we were told to eat at the Local Restaurant. Yes, that is the name.

We had a lamb braise:


And yes, it was really called the Local Restaurant:


After we finished lunch we went to the Goreme Open Air Museum. The owner of the Local Restaurant then gave us a ride back to Uchisar for our last evening.

Hiking the Pigeon Valley

The Pigeon Valley leads from Uchisar to Goreme. As Uchisar is the highest point around, our hike was downhill. Everyone we saw was walking the other way. It turns out that Goreme is a very popular place for backpacking travelers, as it has many cheap pensiones.

We started the hike down from our place - it was about a 2 K walk. Very pleasant.

Here Doreen is at the start of the trail:


The odd rock formations were everywhere. So were wild Lilacs. As we live in Houston, we seldom see lilacs. They bring back memories of my childhood in Wisconsin.

I did not know that they were native to Cappidocia. (I really still don't know that. But I am assuming it from there presence here)



The walk had two tunnels that had been carved by the little stream:


We saw many people heading up. So sad to be them!

Heading home

This post will be out of order. I still need to write a little more about Cappadocia and the Turkish Agean. But this is our flight home. We should be boarding in about half an hour.

A great trip.

More driving in Anatolia

After we left Sobesos, where the Roman village was being uncovered, we came across a sign for the Keyserik Monastery. We had not heard of it, and it was not on our map. But we stopped, as this is the sort of thing you rent a car for.

There was another car with Tourists there, and their guide/driver was sitting down with the woman who was selling tickets to enter. It looked as if she lived in the caves still, as she had all her stuff there in front of her. For our YTL3 ticket entrance fee, we also got a cookie. She was very nice.

These were gorgous churches. There were no people there, though there had been many in the past. There was a lot of Greek graffitti, much if it with dates from the late 19th or early 20th century.

This room in particular was moving, just because the colors were so vivid:


You can see some of the frescoes, with the graffitti here:


We then drove down to Solangi to see several more, and much more famous painted churches. (many photos in my Picasa album to the right ---->)

But it started pouring down rain. We had to hide in this cave until it stopped.

We really felt isolated. There were NO people in this area where we stopped. There was a French couple we saw originally, but they skedaddled when it started raining.

A Turk jumped into our cave, apparently from nowhere. He was telling us that he owned the apricot trees on the grounds. We had no reason to disbelieve him. He told us that he sold dolls down in the village. We said we would stop by.

Then he walked with us to this church:


and promptly disappeared.

We did go to his doll shop later. More about that by and by.

Driving in Anatolia

After much angst, (almost all on my part, I assure you) we decided to rent a car and drive around Cappadocia. It proved to be a wonderful decision. The only thing I gave up was beer or wine at lunch, and since the beer is just OK and the wine is expensive here, that hardly seemed like much of a sacrifice.

We had a small Japanese car, with a manual transmission. Everyone was very concerned to know if I could drive a standard. I assured them that I have owned many manual transmission cars, and this would not be a problem.

So we got into the Uchisar town center, and tried to figure out were to go. The roads are all very well marked, and with Doreen as navigator, and a small, not to scale, almost hand-drawn map, we started out.

People don't really drive a lot here. I don't think that many people have cars. And gas is VERY expensive. So we were treated with many views like this one:

where we were essentially the only car on the road. In this particular case, this road was not even on our map. It had signage telling us we were heading in the correct direction, though. So we kept going.

The first place we stopped was the underground city of Kayseri. As I had mentioned earlier, this rock is very easy to work. And the ancient citizens took advantage of this to create cities that dropped up to eight stories underground. The one we went into has been excavated to six stories, and open to four. The ceiling (or roof, or back, if you prefer mining terms) was generally very low. Getting into the place there was one very long, skinny, narrow passageway that was no more that 3.5' tall the whole way. I am guessing it was about 100 m long, and you had to duck walk the whole way. Oddly enough, I (at 6'6") did not bonk my head once. Doreen, (at 5'8") could have used a hard hat. I guess I am just used to being closer to the ceiling.



It was uncomfortable and rather unpleasant once we got through. But the women behind us really freaked out. My guess is that the younger one was 50, the older one 70. (give or take 5 years). The younger one started crying "Mamma, I can't get through! Mamma, I don't like this! Mamma, I want to go back!". Their guide talked her down.

(as an aside, we never used guides in any of these places. When we would overhear them, we were happy we did not. They would sometimes have useful information, but more likely it was just non-sense. We had a Blue Guide, and some other books. It is better to do your homework, I guess. The guides, though, did not like us. Nor did they hide it)

We kept following the red arrows (inbound) until we saw a group of about 40 Japanese tourists coming out the wrong way. I guess they couldn't finish the trip.

You can see here how low it was:

It was worth the trip. It was crazy imagining 20,000 bodies underground waiting for the Huns to leave.

When we got out, we drove through a small town and stopped to take a photo of the scenery. This boys came up to the car and started asking our names, (in English):

We replied and chatted a bit. They did not speak much English other than "What's your name?". Look at the eyes on that one on the right. Many of these Turks have these crazy green/blue eyes.

As we started getting back into the car, the one in the middle started shouting "Donkey! Monkey! Donkey! Monkey! Donkey! Monkey!" I imagine that those are about the only "bad" English words he knew. Then as we were driving away, he spit at the car.

I attributed this more to having three 9-11 year old boys in one place. Doreen pointed out that we have never been spit at before.

We then drove down to a new discovery of an old Roman village. They would not let us take photos, but it was a heck of a thing to see.

More Uchisar and the White Valley

This terrain is really amazing. It seems like an impossible, other worldly environment. Considering that people lived in all of these "Fairy Chimneys" I guess you could say that it is like another world.

Many people still live in these places, but they tend to want to have indoor plumbing and electricity. Imagine that! But the tuft is still impressive.



Now, many of the fairy chimneys are used to raise pigeons. One of the books says that they are raised for the droppings, which make good fertilizer. Personally, I think that they are raised for the squabs.




This is the inside of one of the houses. This one is pretty tall - many of them I have to squat to get into. When I get down to the undergournd city, you will see some REALLY small spaces. I think that many tourists freak-out when they get underground. I was not too happy myself, but mainly because I was duck-walking for about 200 m. Yipes! Not too much fun.


Kocabag is the big winery in Cappadocia. We bought some, and enjoyed it. They even gave us a Kocabag bag to carry the wine home.

Uchisar

We made the easy flight to Uchisar relatively late in the day. We did go and see the Hagia Sofia one more time, there are more photos listed over to the right---->


This is what the landscape looks like around Uchisar. It is a soft volcanic Tuft covered up by some lava flows. As the lava flows erode off, the tuft is easy pickings for wind and rain. And cave builders.


This is our little house.


This is our porch.


Every morning at about 5:00 AM balloons take off to view the Goreme valley. Very pretty.