So we’ve decided to head to the capital city, Ankara. It was a planned city, not unlike Canberra in Australia, created when Ataturk came into power. It was once a small backwater, now a major metropolis. Catching the bus at 2:00! But first, chicken doner sandwiches!
Today we went on a whirlwind group tour of some of the major sights in the area.
It was fascinating! It went a little too quickly through some of it, but we got to see lots of stuff, and each stop was more incredible than the next.
The main highlights were the Underground Cities — literally long cities made of large rooms carved 8 stories deep into the ground. The locals would each have a tunnel from their house into the city, and would escape down when raiders came by. The many air shafts to keep the cities ventilated look like wells from the top, and apparently the cities were in use for hundreds of years.
We also saw the Pigeon Valley, where tiny holes in the tufa mounds were made to keep pigeons; the Ilhara Valley, which was caused when an earthquake ripped the land apart– a river flows there now, and it is cool, with excellent trout; many cave churches and cave monastaries and the infamous “love valley” where the volcanic rock and tufa has eroded into, um, how shall we say, “unique” shapes. Pictures to follow!
I’m feeling sleepy so any major Cappodocia update will have to wait ’till later… Going to take a day off of travel & major sight-seeing tomorrow — just lounge around the pool and figure out where to go next. I will stop into the next town over, Ugurp (at least I think that’s what it is called) and check out the old back streets and sample local wines at their winery. (I have already learned the Turkish word for wine, it is Sarap. Now I need to learn the word for “dry”…)
I think it’s an early night for me tonight… Lots of hot sun today. For a change.
More tomorrow!
We’re aware of the recent bombings in Turkey; it’s pretty scary, as Lisa and I were just on the Mediterranean coast right before the bombings. But now Marcus & I are in Cappadocia, in a true ‘backpackers’ town — nothing like the fancy tourist resort towns we were near before. (We actually stayed in smaller towns near the bigger tourist towns, which was nice).
Getting to Cappadocia from Pamukkale was a trip. Seriously. It was an 11 hour bus ride, not including the 15 minutes to wait for the un-airconditioned “shuttle” nor the 25-minute shuttle ride to the bus station. At the bus station it was a mass of confusion when we went up to a ticket window and the guy took our ticket, saying, “Change ticket, change ticket.” I began to panic as people started chattering away in Turkish behind the window. “I just want to know where the bus leaves from!” The people in Pamukkale assured me that it would be easy to find our bus in Denizli. HA! I’m also learning that, in Turkey, bending the truth is common. A 9:00 bus might leave at 8:40 or 9:20… A 20-minute rest stop might be 40 minutes. “You’ll have a reservation” might not really mean that we’ll have ar eservation. It’s all quite confusing for a New Yorker!
Anyway, after the mass confusion at the bus counter, they gave us a new ticket, with new seats and now saying that we paid 50 YTL instead of 70 YTL. I still have no clue what happened, but we glommed on to 2 Japanese backpackers and we all followed the curt Turkish bus conductor from the indoor area of the station with the ticket windows, past the line of busses, out the gate of the bus station, and down along the side of the road to an area with a few “No Parking” signs. I was completely clueless and rather baffled, but somehow we got on the right bus.
The bus conductor, who was more like a proctor, was gruff and unsmiling. In the first few minutes we began chatting with the Irish couple in the seats in front of us, and Mr. Conductor Man actually “Shush!”ed me. Later in the trip he scolded the woman in front of us for pulling out her cellphone, and rapped on Marcus’s foot when it stuck a little bit too far into the aisle.
We were given lipton tea and some space-age chocolate-and-strawberry packaged cake product. They blasted some American adventure movie dubbed into Turkish, and I thought I was going to lose my mind until Marcus, Mr. Technology himself, pulled out his Playstation Portable that he had loaded with movies, and his super-modern noise-cancelling headphones. We watched “Walk the Line,” which was enjoyable enough, and definitely passed the time well.
The rest stops were a bit nerve wracking. Mr. I-Hate-You-All Conductor told us we had 20 minutes for the stop. It seemed clear to me that he’d be happy to strand us in the middle of nowhere at some Turkish truck stop at midnight, and so I was a bit anxious to make sure we got back on the bus on time. Marcus, at the last moment, had an emergency WC moment, and I was PANICKED that I would wind up in Cappodocia without him and he’d have to find his way here himself after the bus left without me, pulling out despite my cries of “Yuk, yuk!” (No, no!). Luckily, a Turkish minute is twice as long as an American minute, and 40 minutes later we left, with both Marcus and me in our seats.
We finally arrived here at 7 am, only to find that the transport to the new hotel we thought had been arranged by the old hotel never arrived. Luckily, the pension was a short walk. However, upon arriving there, they had no reservation for us, and no rooms available till 9:30 or 10. I was exhausted and cranky, but luckily Marcus’s cell phone works here. We called a few other places listed in the guidebook, and one had a room open for us. It’s twice as expensive as the first place we picked, but twice as nice and much less crowded. Although sometimes I like hanging with other travelers, sometimes I don’t, and the first place was crowded and rowdy. To tell you the truth, I felt old. The place we’ve found has a nice-sized pool, a great view, and the room is fabuolous — cut into the cave, with rock walls, a big bet and carpets and kilims on the wall.
We had a tasty lunch and explored the rock-cut cave churches and “fairy chimneys” of the Goreme Open-Air Museum. Hoping for an easy night tonight, and possibly a tour tomorrow. We’re thinking of springing for a guide just for the 2 of us so we can skip the craziness of larger tours, some of which, we’ve heard, are short on sight-seeing and push shopping trips. Hopefully we’ll be able to avoid that!
Not sure where to head after Cappodocia. Any suggestions from the Peanut gallery???
So today we saw the ancient city of Aphrodiasis, which was quite impressive, with huge columns everywhere. The extent of the city was quite obvious, and there was a nice museum displaying the best and most intact marble statues found during the ongoing excavations.
Also fun was playing with the tiny, tiny kittens. One was so small it fit in the palm of my hand. Marcus let a Pablo-esque kitty drink some water out of his hand. He was one thirsty kitty.
After a hot and dusty bus ride back from Aphrodiasis (with a bit of another “Traveler’s Panic” tummy-ache scare) we swam for a nice long while in the mineral-spring fed pool at the backpacker’s hotel we’re staying at. Then a tasty dinner at the empty restaurant across the street == I had meat-stuffed eggplant and Marcus had grilled chicken, both super=tasty and accompanied by some sort of fried flat potato thingy which was yummy and the requisite cucumber-tomato-onion in lemon juice and olive oil.
Tonight we take the overnight bus to Cappodocia, an area which has “fairy chimneys”, cave churches and underground cities. Supposedly, our hotel room is actually a furnished room in the “cave hotel” so the walls are in a cave! Sounds exciting. NOT looking forward to the 10-hour overnight bus, though. About to head out to stock up on water and potato chips. Good thing we’ve got dramamine, and Marcus has his portable PlayStation that we can actually watch movies on.
And yes, it’s STILL hot!!!
So Lisa has been keeping a blog, too — check it out at
http://lonelyplanet.mytripjournal.com/lisa-and-atilla-in-turkey .
Login with the password: merhaba (this is a general greeting along the lines of ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’ in Turkish)
~~~~
As for me, I left the lovely Mediterranean resort town of Kalkan at 9:30 am on Saturday, catching a small bus to Fethiye, where we had been briefly 2 days before. From Fethiye İ caught a sadly un-aırconditıoned bus to Denizli, where İ cought an even hotter and stuffier bus to our fancy hotel near Pamukkale, finally arriving at about 6:30 at night.
Marcus showed up a few hours later, and we enjoyed a nıce buffet dinner and observed the crazy, over-the-top Turkish wedding that was taking place at the hotel. With over 500 guests, fıreworks, and the bride in some sort of tulle, corset and feather dress, ıt was unlike any wedding ive ever seen in its conspıcuous extravagance. İt was fun to watch, though.
Today we enjoyed the thermal pools at our fancy hotel (the Collosae) which had incredibly nasty service for having as many stars as it supposedly had, but clearly the ’star’ system is different in the US than Turkey. But we thoroughly enjoyed the indoor thermal pool, the super-hot jacuzzi, the amazing outdoor thermal pools, one of which was red due to iron content, and the cooler mineral-water swimming pool.
We indulged ourselves and took a cab to Pamukkale, settled into our hotel and got a leisurley lunch. Then we headed up to the ‘travertines’, geological formatıons formed by calcıum that settles out of the mineral-laden sprıng water. It was absolutely unbelievable; hopefully i can post pıctures soon, tıll then look up ‘Pamukkale’ in google image search and see what you find. We also bathed in the thermal pool there, which was unreal, wıith remnants of marble pıllars from the ancıent cıty of Heıropolis under the water. We explored Heiropolis’s huge ampıtheter and other ruins, and descended back to the travertines at sunset to see how the light changed the color of the water and the white formatıons.
A truly amazing place.
Tomorrow it’s off to Aphrodıasıs, another ancient city, then the nıght bus to Cappodocıa which has more amazing (but differnt) geological formatiıons. We will hopefully stay in a ‘cave hotel’ — literally rooms built into the rock walls in the area.
So excited!
Can,t wait to get back to using a regular american keyboard, though!!!
Don,t forget to check out L,sa’s journal — she even included a pıcture of me looking particularly hot and sweaty at Istanbul’s amazing Top Kapı Palace.
:)
I love road trıps, drıvıng fast, zıppıng down the highway, sıngıng along to upbeat, fun music. Even though Lısa & I don`t know what they`re saying we groove along to the Turkish pop, sometımes tınged wıth hıp-hop or hındı ınfluences. We seem to make faırly frequent stops, for çop şiş (tiny shısh skewers) and tea, or, more oddly, to stop for some dıstınctly Western-style shoppıng at the outlet malls. Yes, outlet malls. More strıp-mall style than the classıc Amerıcan outdoor “outlet vıllage” experıence but outlet shoppıng just the same.
Even more amusıng was when, after just havıng stopped for a quıck browse through the Puma store that popped up from the otherwıse featureless lanscape, Lısa and I spotted a Starbucks sıgn ahead of us. “Oh please, Hakan, can we stop can we stop pleeeeeze????” Atılla joıned ın and so the whole back seat was a chorus of “Pleeeeze???”, essentıally forcıng a Starbucks stop otherwıse face a mutiny.
I asked Hakan what I could get hım, and I understood hım to say “I`ll have what you`re havıng.”
-”Are you sure?”
-”Yes!”
-I trıed to communıcate exactly what he was in for. “Cok Sut! (’Its a lot of mılk’) “; “Yuk cok Kafe (’and not a lot of coffee’),” I warned.
-”OK!”
-“Cok saouk! (’Very cold!’)”
-”Yes, yes!”
Well, clearly we mısunderstood because Hakan looked posıtıvely crestfallenwhen I brought hım out a mılky, lıght brown Iced Latte in a clear plastıc cup wıth a straw– so far removed from what a Turkısh coffee ıs (think super-strong, thick, muddy, double-espresso-style coffee boiled with sugar and served in a teeny-tiny ceramic mug) that I can’t belıeve the drınks can actaully be consıdered related.
But, he was a good sport, sayıng ıt was “Güzel, güzel!” (”Good, good!”) and eventually fınıshed ıt all. I found mıne fabulous as usual. We really need to fıgure out how to get these ın the mornıng ınstead of 6 o’clock at nıght!
So I cant seem to send emails from my regular noisystreet address… also not sure if im getting all emails sent there… people like, oh, MOM please know ive been trying to send emails!!!
Theres so much to update but no time to write. Left Lisa & crew today at 9:30 am and after 3 long hot un-airconditıoned bus rides am in Karihyat near Pamukkale. Hopefully Marcus will arrive here safely and we will get to see the ruins at Heiropolis tomorrow without either of us dropping dead from heat stroke. Whose idea was it to go to the Middle East in August again???
Seriously, İve gotten to experience all of the salient characteristics of Burning Man– unrelenting heat and sun with mınimal avaılable shade, getting covered in dust (at ruins at Ephesis), bread goes stale the instant it’s exposed to air, and there was a dude in Bodrum selling blinky lights, bracelets, etc. on the street.
Am definitely missing being near the Sea right now!!!! Iim off to find the pool and some cold, cold water…
Havıng a great tıme, seeıng tons of stuff, lots of tıme ın the car but ıt`s worth ıt.
Spent some tıme at the beach, saw ruıns, eatıng great food.
It ıs hotter than you can ımagıne. Sweat, sweat, and more sweat.
Only 1 more day wıth Lısa & co, then a day or 2 on my own, then meetıng up wıth M.
Wıll try to update more thoroughly when get a chance!!!
From the wrıtten journal:
Living in San Francisco all summer, I’ve forgotten what August is like in the rest of the Northern Hemisphers. The humidity here is surprising me, reminding me of my times in Indonesia. Even ın the evenıngs when the termperatures are cooler and there ıs a slıght breeze, a damp fılm remaıns on my skın, especıally ındoors. Thıs mornıng, I woke up in a pool of sweat, laying squarely ın a huge patch of sun beamıng ın superstrength through the wındow. I trıed to fıgure out how to raıse — or lower, I wasn`t quıte sure — the thıck metal slatted shades — more lıke shutters — that I saw on the wındows yesterday afternoon. But after about 20 mınutes of fıddlıng wıth the thıck cord and what I assumed was some sort of pully system, I gave up for fear of breakıng the whole contraptıon. I crawled back on top of my damp sheet and trıed to lıe ın the small part of the futon that remaıned ın shadow, and I was able to sleep fıtfully for about another hour, dreamıng, oddly enough, that we were vısıtıng Gryffyndoor whıch was, ın fact, a Turkısh treasure. (Mınd you, I`ve only read the 1st Harry Potter book, and that was years upon years ago and I barely remember ıt. It`s so strange what comes to us ın our dreams!)
Now, havıng left Istanbul, weire on the next part of our journey. I orıgınally thought we were headıng straıght to Bodrum, an Agean resort town, but I thınk weire actually takıng the leısurely route there, stoppıng at poınts of ınterest along the way. There doesnit seem to be any set plans of exactly where weire goıng or where we,re stayıng, whıch, Iim gatheriıng, ıs the Turkısh way of doıng thıngs.
I`ve always fancıed myself a laıd-back, play-ıt-by-ear kınd of gırl, but I`m learnıng that, compared to the Turks — and the Californians for that matter — that`s not quıte always the case. Not knowhıng what,s goıng on, not to mentıon tryıng to coordınate meetıng up wıth Marcus when he gets here ıf we don`t know where we wıll be, ıs causıng me not a small amount of anxıety. But, thankfully, Marcus seems to be pretty calm about ıt, and hopefully heill just be able to fly to the closest place to meet me somewhere ın the south a few days after he arrıves ın Istanbul.
I guess that`s the rub of travelıng wıth others. The Buddhists say that nirvana ıs the absence of desıre; I thınk surrenderıng to my complete lack of ındependence ıs the best way to go ın thıs sıtuatıon. Atilla,s famıly ıs beıng extremely generous, and Iim gettıng to experıence Turkey ın a totally dıfferent way than had İ been travelıng ındependently. Sure there are trade-offs, but so far there are frustratıons, but it`s totally worth it…
Istanbul is a very crowded cıty (12-16 million people, depending on where you start counting). Traffic is insane, snarling snakelike through 1-way cobbled lanes. Pedestrians don´t stand a chance — in fact, vehicles appear to speed up when they see humans trying to cross. Atilla´s family are all poplice, and they seem to take red lights as suggestions; no left-turn signs don´t apply to them. At least they look both ways before proceeding…
Millions of people each day crowd the ferries on their daily commutes or to just get around the city; every light-rail car i saw throughout the day — from 1pm till 8 — was full to the windows with people, packed sardinelike in the cars. It makes me appreciate San Francisco, the city my Dad described as so much more ‘civilized’ than New York. Well, parts of Istanbul make New York seem like a positively tranquil walk ın the park.
But, there are hidden nooks and crannies all over the city, it seems– narrow, crooked cobblestone lanes abutted by ancient walls, lined by small shops and wooden houses, with mosque spires towering in the background. İt can be truly magnificent.