Day 8 & 9: Esenler

Note about the map, again. This post is about Esenler, the small village outside of Konya that we stayed at. Cappadocia comes later:


After Konya, the profs arranged with Mehmet from the carpet shop for us to go to a mountain village where he was from and stay with families there. We drove to the village in a small van and it took us 2 hours to get there driving through plains, valleys and mountains, and passing many small villages along the way. The first night I wrote a summary of what I did the first day:

We arrived in the village at about 1. It took us a good two hours to get here from Konya, most of it through back roads. We passed many small villages on the way here, but the place we stopped at was literally the end of the road – there are no more villages after it. We unloaded our stuff and then got back on the bus to go to picnic we had planned. The bus took us on the road to a rocky bluff, where we found a formation of rocks to eat on. After eating, we hiked around a bit, climbing to a cliff where there was a dramatic view of the valley below. We were standing on the Taurus mountains, which wind their way up central Turkey, and so from our viewpoint we could see some really tall mountains still covered with snow.

Clayton on the cliff overlooking the valley below:

Climbing around the cliffs:

After coming back from the picnic, we took the bus and got to where we had left our belongings. The people there were laying out rugs – Turkish rugs and kilims are among the most famous in the world – in order to fade them out a bit. Carpets can be laid out for several weeks or months, depending on how much fading you want for the carpet. Apparently, in previous years as many as 4000 carpets are laid out at one time, covering the hillsides. Now, though, only 300 carpets were being laid out, a consequence of young people leaving the villages where weavers traditionally come from to move to big cities like Konya and Istanbul.

Muammer, who organized the trip for us, brought a few carpets for us to sit on, and some nice Turkish women served us tea. After sitting around for a bit, we finally received room assignments – two of the girls and William and Prof Shields would stay in one house, the other four girls would stay in another house, Edward and Clayton would stay in one house, and Kevin and I would each stay in separate houses. This surprised us, since we all expected to stay in pairs, but it was fine with me.

Unfortunately, I was kind of disappointed with the home I stayed in – I’m very grateful for Bekir and his wife having opened up their home to me, but I really wanted to be able to interact more with a family. Instead, the couple I stayed with were older and had four sons, three of whom were living in Konya and one in Poland. The wife didn’t really stick around and I ended up seeing her only when she brought food in; the husband was nice but not a very good talker, so we ended up having a lot of awkward moments. I would try saying something in Turkish, and he would either respond in something I didn’t understand, or would laugh. Needless to say, our conversations didn't go very far.

The house I stayed in:



And the bathroom, which was across the street, non western and not working. I tried to spend as little time there as possible:

The village:

After a while, I decided to go walk outside, where I heard some kids playing. I watched them play soccer for a while before I was approached by a nice man named Memed, who invited me to sit with him. I introduced myself as an American student travelling around Turkey, and pretty soon some other guys came up and started talking to me. Everyone was extremely friendly, and one of them even brought a bowl of cherries for me to eat. I got out a bag of candy I had bought for kids and offered it to everyone, which seemed to make them happy. We talked a little more and then I decided to start playing soccer with the kids. They kind of mismatched the teams, with me and two others on one side and five on the other, but it was still fun. After working up a sweat, I stopped playing and then started taking pictures of the kids, which they seemed to like.

After that, I was told to come to dinner. I ate with Bekis a somewhat awkward meal consisting of potato soup, spicy pilav, salad, yogurt, ayran, watermelon, and something that seemed to be a mix of eggplant and lamb’s stomach. I didn’t enjoy that last one so much. After dinner, I was led by Bekis to the house where the rest of the Americans had assembled, and we each discussed our experiences thus far while drinking tea. The people in the other houses (they had all come there too) seemed to be very nice, and from what I heard, everyone was having a good time. I came back with Bekis at around midnight and saw that they prepared a bed for me in one of the rooms. I said my iyi geceler (good night) and headed to bed.

The second day, I woke up at around 8 and ate breakfast with Bekir again. Muammer called me at the house number and I walked up with Bekir to the original place where all the carpets were laid out. There I met up with Kelly, Zoe, William and Prof Shields and a group of Turks. They ate breakfast while took pictures and played with one of the cutest toddlers in the world:

The and William sharing a moment:


After that, Muanmer took Zoe, Kelly and I to a farm to pick cherries with one of the guys they had eaten breakfast with. We drove to the orchard and started picking some delicious looking cherries. The first few buckets we picked were "male cherries", which are yellow and help pollinate the other cherries. We also picked a few buckets of red Kiraz cherries. They were all delicious. I asked Muammer if they used pesticides on the cherries and he said that they did but used them infrequently because the climate so conducive to good growing.




View from the cherry orchard:



After the cherries, we went to eat lunch and afterwards were taken down into the big valley we'd seen the day before to go swimming at another waterfall. It was beautiful:


We walked and hiked around the waterfall in our bathing suits and even went behind the waterfall into a cave. The current was really strong, so we couldn't really swim like we had in Egirdir, but we still had fun. We ate peaches that some of the other girls had picked and Muammer cut a watermelon for us.

After a while, we decided to head back. I had a quiet dinner with Bekir, then headed to Kevin's house and drank tea with his family. They were all very nice, and their son Mustafa Kemal (named after THE Mustafa Kemal) was very cute. I watched a Turkish version of Deal or No Deal, and then headed to the girls' place and stayed there for a while. After that, it was back to Bekir's house - except when I got there, they were not there. I momentarily panicked as I tried opening the door but was rescued by Kevin and his host, who had come to get me to tell me that Bekir was still at their place. The Turks all thought it was very funny.

We left the next morning, and Bekir was nice enough to get me a couple of bottles of soda water for the trip. Overall, it was definitely an experience that I won't forget, and it gave me a lot of insight about the way people actually live out in the small vilalges that most tourists don't even notice.

Day 7-8: Konya

Hey all. So I'm in Cappadocia, as indicated by the map. Unfortunately, spotty internet and a lack of time have prevented me from updating my trip. Here's the trip so far:

And now

We arrived in Konya after catching the Fez travel bus in Egirdir and rode it for three hours (that seems to be the standard amount of time for getting from place to place here). Konya is a very conservative city of about 2 million in south-central Turkey.



It really doesn't have much going for it other than it was an important center for the Seljuk Turks during the 12th century and, most importantly, it was the home to Mevlana Celaddin Rumi, founder of the Sufis, a branch of Islam that preaches acceptance of all in the quest for a connection between one's self and the divine. Here's a quote by him:

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Sufis are most famous for a way of praying in which they spin around in circles to chanting and music in order to connect with God. People who do it are called the whirling dervishes. Under Turkish law, all religious groups are banned, so the Sufis are technically illegal. However, the government mostly turns a blind eye towards their activities, and the whirling dervishes even perform as a "folkloric" act. We went to one show one of the nights:



We also made it to the tomb of Mevlana, which is the second most visited museum in Turkey after Topkapi palace:

The last highlight of my time in Konya was my experience buying a carpet. Ever since I visited Hasan's shop in Istanbul I'd looked into buying a rug, and with the encouragement of my mom I decided to go for it in Konya, the heart of the carpet making area in central Turkey. I decided to shop at Mehmet and Muanmer's carpet shop - they had been helping us and giving us tours the whole time we'd been in Konya and had been very friendly with us (and, luckily, gave me a wholesale price discount). The process goes like this - I tell the seller that I want to buy a carpet, and he starts by sorting through what kind of carpet I was looking for - a kilim, which is made of wool, a rug, which is more traditional, and several other sorts. Then the seller tries to figure out how much I want to spend. Once the basics have been figured out, the seller starts laying out carpet after carpet on the floor. I then go through and choose ones that I like, eventually narrowing it down to one. Meanwhile, the seller keeps a steady supply of tea, water and even food. When the buyer finally decides to buy a carpet, the buyer and seller negotiate a price. Overall, it took me about 2 hours to figure out what I wanted and how much it would cost, but I finally picked out a great kilim that I really like. A victory picture with Muanmer after picking out the rug:

Day 6: Egirdir

After leaving Pamukkale, we got on a big tour bus that took us three hours to Egirdir (pronounced Eyirdir), a small town on the shores of Lake Egirdir. Egirdir was not very exciting in and of itself - the town was tiny, and proved especially disappointing when we tried looking around for places to watch the Turkey-Croatia game only to find no good places. While in the town, we did visit an old medrese next to a mosque built in the thirteenth century. We also got to climb around some old Seljuk ruins and stand on top of an old castle tower - for some reason, the town thought it'd be nice to put their name on top of it:


The town and the lake:


The biggest attraction about the town was the lake - it's the second largest lake in Turkey with more than 550 square kilometers of water - much larger than Lake Norman. After arriving, we went swimming in the clear water which felt really good. The place we stayed at was a pension - part hostel, part hotel - we stayed in the hostel part, with all ten of us in a room. It was an experience, especially since we had to share one toilet and one shower between all of us and about 15 other Australians/English/New Zealanders. Needless to say, it ended up being a lot of dashing into the shower/bathroom whenever someone came out of it.

Egirdir in and of itself is not much of a stop, but Prof Shields and William had been to it before and had been really impressed with the Kings Highway, an ancient road used by the Persians to invade Greece and by Alexander the Great and the Greeks to invade Persia. It winds its way through a narrow canyon called Candir (Jandir) that is now a national park. It was absolutely beautiful, with huge cliffs and mountains and lots of forest with a river winding through it and the ancient road on one of the side cliffs. It really reminded me of Yosemite minus the ancient ruins and the annoying tourists.

Here's the road at its widest:


Some Greek markers along the road:



We hiked along the ancient road (and then kept going after that road seemed to have disappeared) and saw a really blue pool of water beside a nice waterfall a ways down the cliff. We decided to stop there, and Kristina and I scouted a way to get down to it.

The water was freezing, and we had to jump in a few times to get used to it. With all the big rocks around, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to jump off one. Edward did it first, jumping off a rock about 15 feet high (we scouted the depth of the pool - none of us could reach the bottom diving, so it was obviously very deep). We all tried doing it - here's me in my first attempt:

After the first one, the only logical place to go was up, so up we went. Edward was the first to jump off of the second cliff, a good 35 feet above the water. After Kristina, Zoe and Kevin went, I decided to gather my courage and give it a shot. I was halfway up when my new fear of heights decided to kick in - once I got to the top, I started freaking out. Kristina, who had come up with me, had to talk me into doing it for five minutes while everyone below watched. Here's me freaking with Kristina trying to convince me to do it:


After 5 minutes, I finally decided to man up and do it. So I jumped:

The feeling was absolutely exhilarating. I didn't feel any fear at all - just adrenaline and excitement and fun going through me. I'm glad I did it.

After swimming around some more, we gathered around Prof Shields and we all talked about tourism in Turkey - how it was that we were the only people in this beautiful park, and how Turkey markets itself towards foreigners and how that compares to the way it shows itself to its own citizens.

We left the canyon after that and, after getting lost for a bit when our driver went the wrong way, headed back to our rooms. We ate a nice meal with the profs and then headed out to find a bar to watch the soccer game at with 45 minutes to go. We walked all along the town and asked everywhere, but there seemed to be nowhere to go. Finally, 15 minutes after kickoff, we decided to go back to the pension to watch it. We watched it with 2 Turks and entirely too many elderly British and Australian people (not the ratio we wanted, obviously), but it was still exciting to watch Turkey come back from a 1-0 deficit 1 minute after the game was supposed to have ended. After penalties, I ran outside to celebrate with Kelly and Yekta. There was a procession of about 40 cars going by honking their horns and hanging out their window and yelling and singing. Unlike Canakkale, we were the only people who were actually standing on the side of the road. We cursed ourselves for not being in Istanbul to celebrate this ridiculous victory (or any major city, for that matter), but it was still exciting to have everyone honking at us in celebration (as opposed to honking at us to avoid hitting us).

And that was that for out stay in Egirdir - stay tuned for the next part, Konya.

Trip Day 4 & 5: Pamukkale

After leaving Ephesus, our next destination was Pamukkale, the famous location of the white calcium waterfalls that is one of the most famous places in Turkey. We took a bus from Ephesus and after a mystic experience with the Turk driving the bus we got on another bus and made it to the town after two hours. The town itself wasn't very impressive - the major days of tourism came to an end a few years ago after UNESCO declared the site a World Heritage site and closed down the five 5-star hotels on top of the cliffs. Since then, some tourists come by bus, but more and more people don’t make the trip to the town.

We arrived at about 1:30, but because it was so hot (and because the white calcium would reflect the heat and make it even hotter - there was a forecast of 99 degrees for our area), we decided it’d be better to chill down below and then head up towards the evening. At 4 we met up with Prof. Shields and talked about the different buildings we’d seen in Ephesus and compared the different layers of identity we’d seen at Ephesus – just there, we’d seen Greek and Roman buildings contrasted with modern Turkey. At 6, we decided to head up to the cliffs.

The cliffs of Pamukkale and the ruins around it are one of the most impressive sites any of us have seen on this trip. And fun. Here is a picture of the area (not by me) Because Turkish authorities have mishandled the amount of tourists coming into the site, many of the cliffs that once were filled with water are now empty. Still, walking up the cliffs along a road among the white calcium which still had pools was a lot of fun. We had to take off our shoes to walk on the calcium so that we could go up to the plateau on top of the white cliffs, partly to preserve the calcium, partly so we didn’t have to get our shoes wet because water cascades all the way down.

Here's a picture of Yekta walking up the road through one of the pools:

We were definitely not the first people to go to Pamukkale – the first people arrived more than 2000 years ago, drawn by the white cliffs, the hot spring water, the beautiful view, and the strategic location along the King’s Highway, an ancient road used by the Persians and by Alexander. The ancient city of Hierapolis was located on the plateau adjacent to the cliffs and had a population of 100,000. The people of the city thought that the water that formed the cliffs, which was filled with calcium and carbon dioxide, had healing properties, and so built temples to the gods along the sites where the springs came out. One of the temples, the Temple of Apollo, was built on top of a cave that emitted a poison gas – people thought the area was cursed, and so only certain people who were blessed could enter it (it turned out to be sulfur, and the people who could go in had mastered the way they breathed in the cave).

Once we got to the top, we made a beeline for the pool. The pool were like the Tabacon hot springs at Arenal in Costa Rica – except that in the hot springs were Roman columns. We never got over the fact that we were swimming in warm water in an ancient building that had been flooded hundreds of years ago. Here's a picture:

We swam around for a bit, then got out and went with William and Sarah to look at the ruins of Hierapolis. A look at the many ruins:


We made our way by the Temple of Apollo and then wound our way up to the theater. This was probably my favorite part of the whole area – the theater was set on top of a hill overlooking the plateau which in turn overlooks the entire valley.


The group:

The theatre was my favorite part. We acted like little kids and started climbing all over. I saw Zoe at end of one overhang on the other side of the theater and decided I wanted to do that. It took me a while to work past my newfound fear of heights (more a fear of heights where it is very possible that I’m going to fall off), but I finally got there. Here's the ledge I climbed on - this is a shot of Edward on it (the 40 foot drop isn't visible):

My foot standing on the ledge:

After that, we headed down the mountain back to our hostel, where a delicious four-course meal awaited us. It was a good day.

TURKEY DOES IT AGAIN

Turkey pulled off another win in the Eurocup, this time in the quarterfinal of the tournament. The game went all 90 minutes and 28 minutes of overtime without a goal, then Croatia scored. Everyone thought the game was over, including the Croatians. Then Turkey scored in the 122 minute of the game - the latest goal in Eurocup history. Naturally, everyone went crazy - the game was going to penalty. The Croats looked depressed and deflated, while Turkey looked upbeat - then Croatia missed the first penalty. Turkey scored theirs, and then Croatia scored. Turkey scored their second - the score was 2-1 in a best of 5 penalty series in favor of Turkey. Croatia then went ahead and missed their next two penalties, and Turkey made theirs - the game was won, with Turkey on top. It was a ridiculous game to add to two other ridiculous wins - in the last three games, Turkey has won the game in the last 2 minutes. In total, Turkey has led an opponent all of 9 minutes out of more than 300 minutes of game time.

Turkey plays Germany the 25th of June in the semifinal game. Kos Turkiye!

Day 3: Ephesus

Today was a crazy day. We packed in so much stuff that it's hard to believe we did it all (without complaining, too). I think everyone had a good time though, and the sights we saw were incredible.

I started the day off early at 7 a.m. - unheard of for American students in the summer. The breakfast we got at the hostel - the A and Zed Guest House (or Australian and New Zealand Guest House) was great. We then decided to hire a bus for the day. That took us to our first stop - the ruins of Ephesus.

Ephesus was a major ancient city with a population of approximately 250,000 people. It was a bustling trade town with access to the Aegean. Interestingly, the city where we are staying - Selcuk, was actually the original site of Ephesus. However, one of the rulers of the city decided he didn't like that it was built on a floodplain, so he built an entirely new city - what we now consider Ephesus - in a valley uphill from Selcuk. Nobody in the old town wanted to move to the new city, though, so the ruler decided to block the sewage and drainage pipes and flood the city and so convinced the people to move.

Now, Ephesus is considered one of the best rebuilt ancient cities in the world. And it is impressive.

We started walking through the city near the odeum where governing decisions were made. We then made our way down a street called, appropriately, the Marble Street, for all the marble that was on it. Apparently, the columns that ran along either side of the street were each 8 meters (24 feet) tall. Pretty impressive:


The Marble Street winds its way down to the Library of Celsus. Though the library was not very big in and of itself, the building was impressive:


From the Library of Celsus, the Marble Street makes its way past houses. On the the side of the road there is a marble slab with a foot on it:






The foot apparently points towards the brothel, which is conveniently located in front of the Celsus Library (really, Greeks, could you be a little more discreet?):


After the foot, the Marble Street goes by the Grand Theatre, an impressive ampitheatre that used to seat 25,000 people - 4000 more people than the Dean Dome. The ruins today haven't been reconstructed to its full capacity yet:


The acoustics were incredible - William performed a monologue from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar on the floor and we could hear him near the top row of seats - here's me from where we sat to listen:



It was, needless to say, very impressive. If you look at this last picture, you can see a white road going off perpendicular to the theater. That was the famous Arcadian Way, along which shops and salesmen did business. That road ended where the sea began - the city of Ephesus was a port, after all. But what doomed the city was the silting of its harbor, similar to what happened with Troy and other cities in the Aegean. The city is now 7 kilometers from the ocean, showing how much the geography of the region has changed.


But that was just the start of the day. After the ruins, we went to the place where the Virgin Mary reputedly died. According to the history guides, St John was entrusted with Mary's care after Jesus was crucified. Since he was in charge of spreading the word in Asia Minor, he brought Mary with him, and she settled in the hills above Ephesus, then the major city I described earlier. According to different sources, Mary died in a house in those mountains.

In the 19th century, a blind German nun who had never been out of Germany reportedly had a vision that she had seen the resting place of the Virgin Mary. Several expeditions set out, using her directions, and supposedly found the place right where she said it was. Now, it attracts a lot of tourists, Christian and Muslim pilgrims and Catholics from commoners to Popes John Paul I, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. The house itself is very unassuming:


But it was interesting to see it regardless.

After that, we went to an archeology museum for about 45 minutes, then we were taken out to dinner by Mrs. Gurel, Emily's family's friends from Izmir. Mrs Gurel was very kind and took us to a school of nomads who were being taught how to make rugs. We ate a very good lunch and then headed out to the beach.

The beach was fabulous - we have all been craving going swimming since we got to Turkey, and the beach we went to was perfect. The water was warm - it is the Aegean, after all - the sand was warm, the sun was hot (but not too hot), there weren't too many people - over all, it was great. We stayed for a couple hours then went back to the hostel and changed. Pictures up from that soon!

Thirty minutes later, we all piled back into our minibus to go to Sirince, a small Greek town in the mountains above Selcuk. The town was very beautiful and picturesque - all the buildings were painted white, the streets were cobblestone, and it was set in a olive and grape growing area. We walked around for a good while, then headed to dinner. The town reminded me a lot of Napa Valley - it is a wine area, after all - and the coffee hills of Costa Rica. Here are some pictures:



Tomorrow we leave entirely too early for Pamukkale, where the Calcium baths are. Should be fun. Anyway, I'll try to keep posting regularly. Peace!

Road Trip: Days 1 and 2

Left on the two week trip yesterday morning. After a few hours of sitting on a very uncomfortable bus, we stopped by the site of the Battle of the Gallipoli, one of the most important battles of World War I. The site of the battle as you can see from the map is strategically important - whoever controlled the peninsula would supposedly control the Dardanelles Straight. If the allies could win the battle and take the Dardanelles, Istanbul would be quick to fall and Russia could be provided more supplies for the Eastern Front.

Interestingly, the Battle of Gallipoli positioned two forces - the Turks and the Australians and New Zealand Army Corp (known as ANZAC) that had never had any animosity. But the troops engaged in battle for nine months until the Allies were forced to retreat following their defeat by one Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk (see the long blog post about him below).



Both sides took a combined casualty list of 500,000 men, of whom maybe 150,000 died, primarily on the Ottoman side. Here's a picture of a ANZAC cemetary. The beach behind it was used as the landing spot for the force - they had to climb those cliffs under gunfire to try to push back the Turks.



Nevertheless, after nine months of fighting, the Turks and the ANZACs developed a sense of friendship and respect that they have to this day. Here are some moving words provided by Ataturk - one of the main Ottoman generals during the battle, 20 years after the battle finished:

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives.. you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.. You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now living in our bosom and are in peace. Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

-Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Clayton brought up an interesting conversation with some of the Australians in our group who said that Gallipoli is as much of a big deal to them as it is to the Turks who won. It was the Australian and New Zealanders first war experience, and it did much to form their national identity.

We also got a chance to dip our feet in the Aegean Sea for the first time - it felt good:



After Gallipoli we crossed the Dardanelles Straight to Cannakale, where we spent the night. We went to a nice restaurant then headed to a sports bar, where we saw Turkey upset the Czech Republic 3-2 in the last 15 minutes of the game. It was incredible - wait to see a blog post about it soon.

Today we got on the bus and headed to the legendary ruins of Troy. We had seen the wooden horse from the movie (which was actually made of fiber glass), and saw the other one that Turkey recreated. The ruins weren't impressive in and of themselves, but just imagining the Trojan war from 3000 years ago in which, according to Homer, 1000 ships and 100,000 men attacked the city because Paris, son of Priam and brother of Hector, had taken Menelaus' wife Helen with him back to Troy. Here's a picture of Zoe climbing the wall of Troy VI, the Troy of Homer's epic.



After Troy, we went on another bus ride to Bergama, where the ancient city of Pergamum is located. The city was once the center of a great commercial empire, but was eventually assimilated into the Roman Empire. The city itself was built at sea level, as it was a port, but the main ruins - the acropolis, the temple of Athena, and the former ruins of the fabled temple of Zeus (which, according to the tour guide, was sold to German archaeologists for money used to build Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul) were all located on top of a mountain with fantastic views of the city and landscape.


The view from the top:



Then we took another 4 hour bus trip to Selcuk, in the south of Turkey, and had a fantastic dinner on the terrace of the Australian and New Zealand Guest House, where we're spending the night. Tomorrow, we'll see the ruins of Ephesus, the Virgin Mary's house where she died, the Temple of Artemis, and the beach.