And nowWe 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:
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