Konya is Cursed

Well, some of the best and worst parts of the trip happened over the last two days. We started Sunday in Pamukkale (which in Turkish means “Cotton Castle”): travertines formed by calcium from nearby mineral waters. The guide books all talk about how they aren’t as neat as they used to be (because now they have limited access to them to preserve them) and they generally try to let you down gently. We thought they were really cool, and had a great time walking up them (in your bare feet, walking through running water which pools up every 20-30 feet). At the top are the ruins of ancient roman town of Heriopolis, where people came to take in the mineral waters. You can do the same thing today, swimming around in the “sacred pool,” which has old roman columns lying in it. But we had to get on our way, so we just took a look at the sacred pool and went back down Pamukkale, which was much nicer, anyway.

We had to get going because this was our big drive: 7 hours from Pamukkale to Konya through Turkey's untouristy lake country. As has been the case for much of our trip, rain followed us, which was too bad, because the lakes are supposed to be brilliant blue and the mountains spectacular. It was neat, in its way, but I suspect in the sunlight it is much nicer.

We stopped along the way at a cherry vendor. Over the course of about 5 miles there were cherry vendors every few hundred yards on the road. We bought a kilo of red and a kilo of green -- for about 2 dollars total. We ate a bunch of the green ones and really liked them: they were crunchy, like apples, and a bit tangy like them too. Didn't taste much like red cherries.

This is where the trip turns bad. When we were about 40 minutes outside of Konya, we passed a flipped over car on the highway. People were waving us to pull over and help. We got out and tried to see if we could do anything, but there were already a dozen people there and the language barrier made coordination impossible. We didn't see anyone bleeding, luckily. They had removed a 12 year old girl from the car, who was crying hysterically. They were about to flip over the car, and I was going to help, but then someone found a knife and they decided to cut people out of their seat belts. I didn't see anyone bleeding, but it seemed possible to me that there were people in the crushed part of the car I couldn't see.

Somewhat shaken, we kept driving to Konya. We were supposed to get there before dark, but a giant lightning storm had moved in, bringing night early. Konya is a town of about a million, but all of the tourist stuff is supposed to be in walking distance and our hotel was right next to one of the major sites. In all of our other cities, we didn't have a map or directions to the hotel and it was perfectly fine. In Konya we got very lost. This was made worse because (to top it all off) there were huge celebrations in the streets for the election that had happened that day. Konya is a conservative city and the conservatives had won. Everyone was driving around, waving flags, flashing their lights, honking. It didn't seem that any of the signs took us where we wanted to go. It was just awful. We drove around for a bit over an hour, continuing to think that maybe we had found it. Finally, I pulled over and asked some traffic police for help. The guy who spoke English was very helpful and nice -- it turned out we were in the commercial center of Konya, but pretty far from where we wanted to be, and had been driving in circles. As we were leaving, another police car came past. The friendly police officer flagged it down and had it escort us (with its police lights) straight to our hotel.

When we got to our hotel, the restaurant had closed early. The receptionist was very apologetic and had some sort of cheese sandwich brought as room service.

In the morning we were trying to find one of the two major sites. We asked a passer-by, who asked a cabbie. The cabbie proceeded to explain to us how to walk there -- something I couldn't quite imagine happening in the US ("Oh, let me just drive you there..."). But that site was closed on Mondays. So we missed one of the two major sites in Konya and proceeded to burial place of Rumi, which was in fact quite nice. No photographs were allowed inside, but it was nice to see in part because it is Selcuk (Turkish but pre-Ottoman) architecture.

[The green dome is over Rumi's tomb.]

As we left Konya, the clouds parted and sun came beaming down. Clearly Konya is cursed. And as we left, I could only think of one thing to say: "Fuck You Konya!" That may have been repeated in the car, with cathartic effect, many times.

Then we returned to our wonderful trip. Unfortunately, the rain has continued. We stopped at a Selcuk caravansary -- a 13th century building of the sort that was built every 15 kilometers or so for the silk road caravans. It was a very cool building. There were beautiful doors, but clearly this was mostly a utilitarian place. It had a giant outdoor area for summer markets and a giant indoor area for winter markets. We really liked it.

[Winter Market area]

The small lunch spot had a giant wall of CDs for sale. I asked the waiter if he recommended any, and it was clear that this was his labor of love and he played a bunch for us. It was a really remarkable place -- the town it is in is rather rundown, and this is clearly a restaurant for tourists. I picked up a CD, of course, which sounded amazing.

Then we drove on to Cappodicia ( "c" sound is hard, so everyone says "Cappodokia"). It was raining hard, so we went to one of the undreground cities -- Kaymakli. It was even more amazing than I expected! These cities were most important to the early Christians in the area to protect against Arab raiders from the south -- but there are traces of roman influence, and some connect to Hittite granaries.

[Stone door roles into place to keep intruders out. Hole is for putting your spear through.]

The cities went down more than 10 floors; they haven't found the bottom of any of them yet. There are dozens of them in Cappadocia, and archeologists think each could support around 60,000 people. They are very utilitarian, although there were wineries and churches inside.

There was a circuit path through the rooms, but it was very easy to get off of it and explore the other lit parts of the caves. We brought a flashlight with us and it let us see how the rooms just went on and on. We frequently illuminated a dark hole to find a staircase leading down or another series of rooms. It was great poking around off to the side. Meanwhile, many tour groups walked by, missing the magic of the place.

To top it all off, tonight we are staying in a cave hotel! This is our big anniversary present to ourselves. We are staying in what is considered the nicest of the boutique cave hotels, and we are taking a balloon ride. We were supposed to go this morning, but because of the rains our flight was cancelled -- but I guess the weather looks good tomorrow, so fingers crossed. In any event, this is the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in: Esbelli Evi in Ugrup. We have a beautiful suite and the little touches are wonderful. The owner is very friendly and has been great about recommending restaurants, organizing the balloon ride, etc.

[Our living room.]

Each suite is unique. When I booked, months ago, he didn't have one suite available for two days, so today we switch to another suite, which is supposed to be the nicest. I can't quite imagine what that'll be like.