Istanbul was Constantinople; Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople...

We had a 6:15 AM flight back to Istanbul which meant waking up at 3:45 AM. Fortunately our series of early morning wake-up calls is over! Once we arrived in Istanbul and checked in to our hotel we headed out to the Sultanhamet area of town. Our plan was to visit the Topkapi Palace first but we accidentally went to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum instead. After we spent an hour or so admiring sculptures from all over Turkey we started getting suspicious. Finally we took a look at the Lonely Planet and discovered we were in the wrong place. But since we were already there, we decided to read up on the Archaeological Museum and discovered that we couldn't leave until we saw all of the sarcophagi (sarcophaguses?) so we went back in. It was definitely worth it. 17 of these sarcophagi were found buried all at the same site and were discovered in 1887 when a local was trying to build a new barn.

After the museum we tried again to go to the Topkapi Palace and after walking all the way up the hill we were informed that the palace is closed to the public on Tuesdays. After failing for the second time in one day we decided to go to Haghia Sofia (aka Aya Sofya, Sancta Sophia, and the Church of the Divine Wisdom). Whatever the name, Haghia Sofia lives up to its distinction. While the church is undergoing restoration, we were still able to enjoy the mosaics (although it took a couple of tries to find them) that make it so famous.

After Haghia Sofia, it was time to hit the Grand Bazaar, not to buy, just to get a sense of prices. The bazaar itself can be a bit overwhelming. Every time you stop to admire one shop’s wares, the neighboring shops call out that it is their turn. It doesn't matter that you were looking at ceramics and they sell t-shirts. Sometimes while walking through the corridor shop owners will get right in front of you, attempting to maneuver you into looking at their carpets, bowls, hats, belly dancing costumes… all while asking where you are from and what you name is and where you are staying. It is really quite amazing how much they are able to say in the moments it takes to pass their shop.

After the Grand Bazaar, we did a quick walk through the Spice Bazaar. Not only can you buy spices and tea there but you can also purchase leeches. We didn’t ask why we just kept on walking. On the way to the bazaar we decided that we would try out a Hamam (Turkish Bath) after shopping but we didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to get there. We seemed to find out way into the garment district of Istanbul as we walked for what seemed like hours. I think we passed two entire blocks that just sold underwear and another two blocks of fabric stores and suit makers. By the time we found our way to the hamam we really needed a bath.

I was a little nervous about my first (and last) hamam experience. Fortunately, we picked one that catered primarily to tourists so most people spoke English and realized that we had no idea what to do. First we are shown to the locker room and given a peştimal to wrap in. Next, you enter the haranet (steam room) where you lie down on a heated marble slab and sweat for 15 minutes or so. Then with little warning warm water is dumped over your back and a you are given a “massage”. In other words, a woman with a loofah-esque cloth rubs (scrubs) you from head to toe, pausing occasionally to dump more water or to ask you to turn over. After the initial scrub down, the woman covers you with bubbles and starts over, two more times. Next you are brought into an adjacent room where you sit on the floor next to a sink and get your hair washed (at this point I highly recommend keeping your eyes closed). After the final rinse down, you are shown to a room with a luke warm pool where you can soak as long as you like. You are also free to return to the steam room for some additional sweat time. After the pool you take a traditional shower and then you’re done. All in all, I would recommend you give it a try if you’re in Turkey.

After dropping our bags off at the hotel and changing we decided to check out the Taksim Square area for dinner. Armed with the hotel map and Lonely Planet we were off. It looked to be about a 2 km away so we figured we be there in 30 minutes or so. This did not work out at planned. Most of the streets don’t have signs and most of the streets on the map are not labeled. Also, the park we planned to cut across was not so easy. We had to walk parallel to it for a while before we found an entrance. About 1 ½ hours after we started, we finally made it, starving and sweating, to the square. Taksim Square apparently has 4 million people pass through it every day and it felt like about a quarter were still there when we arrived. I insisted that we actually step foot into the square and take a photo as proof that we actually made it. Also, we needed to spend at least as much time in the area as it took us to get there so we had a leisurely dinner with a couple glasses of wine before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

After 3 days in a row of sub- 5 AM wake ups, we decided to start off our last full day in Turkey by sleeping in. After a leisurely morning we finally went to Topkapi Palace. When we arrived we quickly realized that every tourist in Turkey and its 7 bordering countries were all at the Palace too. Nearly every place we went we had to stand in line jut to enter. But not everyone stood in line… many people just pushed ahead or rushed the door and the security just stood by and shrugged. We did a quick tour of the highlights (according to Lonely Planet) and then got out. Even the quick tour took about 2 hours.

After the palace we returned to the Grand Bazaar, this time intent on shopping. Some shops were more willing to negotiate than others so we happily left one after another until we found one that would give us a good deal. We each bought a lamp from the gentleman that helped us the day before (this will not be fun getting home as the box is a bit heavy and cumbersome). Hopefully I will find a place to hang it one of these days…

No visit to Turkey is complete without seeing the dervishes whirl (we couldn't take pictures so this is from the website). We had purchased tickets to a whirling dervish performance the previous day and now, lamps in hand, it was time to attend. The show took place in a converted hamam on what used to be the round marble slab in the steam room. Now the slab is a stage and the chairs circle around it. I have to say, that after a day in the heat and the crowds it was sometimes difficult to enjoy the show with its melodic music and spinning dervishes trying to lull me to sleep. I managed to keep my eyes open but I saw a lot of nodding heads around the room. It is hard to describe the performance. There were 5 dervishes and one was clearly the captain. Before the whirling began the spent a lot of time kneeling and then slowly walking is a circle bowing to each other (at least 20 minutes of this). Finally, just as I was losing my patience one of the dervishes began to whirl. Seconds later another one started and before long all 5 were whirling with one hand raised to heaven and another faced down to earth. They whirled and whirled for a long time but then the song ended and they all came to a stop. After a short pause, they repeated the process, a total of 4 times and then the all walked away. If any of you plan to attend a whirling dervish performance I suggest having some coffee beforehand and reading up on it because there are no explanations during the show.

This concludes my trip to Turkey. We leave in the early afternoon to head back home.

The Amazing Cappadocia

It took longer than expected to get to Cappadocia. It was delayed two hours for take-off and then the pilots decided to give us a nice circle tour of Nevşihir… a couple of times, so we wouldn’t miss anything. We were also a bit surprised on how long it took to get from the Nevşihir airport to the town of Göreme. We mistakenly believed that the Nevşihir airport was in Nevşihir. Fortunately, we arrived at our hotel Ufuk (more about this later) with plenty of time to book our balloon flight and go to the Open Air Museum before dinner.

I read in the Lonely Planet guide that we needed to go to the Open Air Museum but I didn’t read further. As a result, I had no idea what to expect. I guess I just assumed it would be like a normal museum except outside. This was not the case. It is actually a series of cave dwellings used by the early Byzantines that lived in the area and included a number of chapels. Most of the room and chapels were pretty bare but a few had some very colorful frescoes remaining. We wandered in and out of the caves for an hour or so before heading back into town to explore.

We had two items on the exploration agenda: 1. Book a tour to an underground city for the following day; and 2. Seek out genuine fake sunglasses for Colleen to replace the pair she left in Şirince. We were successful on the first count but not on the second. All over Selçuk and Fethiye we saw signs advertising both genuine fake watches and genuine fake sunglasses but there were few choices available in Göreme.

After dinner we headed back to Ufuk. We booked a cave room so that we could imagine what it was like to sleep like the Byzantines in a cave (that is if the Byzantines had electricity, running water and a bed). After our long day traveling and wandering Göreme, Colleen and I were really looking forward to our “guaranteed hot showers 24 hours a day.” We quickly concluded that the hot water was cold and the cold water was frigid. I guess they meant that we could get hot water from the kitchen 24 hours a day? So after our “refreshing” showers we went to bed already questioning the plan to get up at 4:15 AM for our balloon ride.

It never really occurred to me that the Kapadokya balloon company had more than one balloon so I was surprised to see that about 50 other passengers beat us to the office in town to await their flight. It took about 30 minutes after arriving to deal with logistics – paying, getting our pilot assignment, drinking coffee (or tea) before boarding a mini-bus with 10 other passengers also assigned to the Sanjay balloon. On the way to the launch site we quickly realized that nearly every tourist in Göreme was awake and boarding a balloon somewhere in the vicinity. There were probably about 40 balloons in total flying between 500-750 tourists. The flight itself was spectacular. We hovered above the unique landscape, both soaring high above the hills and dipping deep into the valleys during our hour-long flight. Once we landed we were each given a flying certificate and a Turkish mimosa (champagne with cherry juice) to celebrate the journey and safe landing. All of this and we were back at our hotel by 8:00 AM.

Side note: Our captain, Sanjay Gupta (not the CNN newscaster/doctor) had previously lived in San Francisco and worked for Deloitte Consulting. Colleen and Sanjay spent a great deal of the morning comparing (her current and his former) colleagues and learned that they had a lot in common. Now Sanjay is a bit of a nomad, traveling all over the world working as a balloon pilots (winters in Melbourne, this summer in Cappadocia, and next summer in Kenya).

Since this was really our only full day in Cappadocia, we had to keep busy. We scheduled a tour that started at 9:30 AM. Most of the tour was ho-hum. The sights were beautiful but I could have happily skipped the 4 km walk through the Ihlara valley and the stone polishing demonstration/shopping trip. However, it was worth it to go to the underground city, Derinkuyu. This city was used by various peoples throughout the generations to hide from various attackers. It goes 150 m down and has a total of 8 floors. While very cool, this is not a trip for the claustrophobics. We spent a lot of time walking through narrow corridors with low ceilings. Colleen and I both had to duck. We also went to the Selime monastery. This is another cave dwelling that, in this case, house 600 monks and nuns during its peak.

We got back to Göreme at 6:00PM. The previous day we made reservations at a restaurant named Dibek. This restaurant is apparently the only one in town that serves genuine testi kebabs. This is a dish that is cooked for hours in a clay pot that is then broken open at the table. We’d been hearing about testi kebabs since Dalyan so our expectations were high, but I must say that Dibek far exceeded them. Colleen had the veggie version that made me very jealous because it was so good. I went with the beef, which was also spectacular. I’m now a little disappointed that we didn’t have it the previous night so we could each try it again.

All in all, one of the best day’s so far. Tomorrow we return to Istanbul.

Mud, Kayaks and Ruins

Our final day in Dalyan was our most relaxing day of the trip so far. We slept in and didn’t have to meet up with the tour until 10 AM at which point we boarded a boat and headed to the ancient city of Kaunos. Similar to Pinara, Kaunos contained a fairly well preserved theater (no dance show this time). There was also a temple from the Greek times and a church that was built after the people were converted to Christianity.

After Kaunos, we re-boarded our boat and went to the Sultaniye hot springs and mud baths. This was definitely a unique experience. After changing into our swim suits, the first stop is the was to be hosed down with a fire hose by a guy that seemed to like his job a bit too much. The we slid in to the brown pool filled with muddy water. You had to reach down deep to grab mud that you then applied all over. Then you exit the pool and stand in the sun and wait for the mud to dry. Next you head to the showers to rinse off the mud before entering the hot springs pool. We were a little disappointed to discover that our friendly fire-hose laden guy was standing at the ready to get us again before and after the hot springs. The hot springs have the pleasant scent of rotten eggs (sulfur) so we weren’t that interested in spending too much time floating around in the cloudy, but warm water. After one more shower and a change of clothes we were back on the boat. After a buffet lunch at The Other Side restaurant (cleverly named because it is on the other side of the river from the majority of Dalyan) we took a long cruise back to turtle beach. A few of us opted to stay on the boat (in the shade) rather than head out to the beach in the scorching sun. After the beach the boat took us back to our hotel in Dalyan where we loaded our luggage back in the bus and headed back to Fethiye.

On our last day of the tour, we went on a kayaking trip. We all gathered in the bus and headed to the town of Gocek and reunited with our cycling guides for a day of kayaking. There were four two-person kayaks and the remainder were singles. Sonia, our guide warned us that you should only kayak in a two-person kayak with someone you really get along with. Colleen and I risked it and were fine; Louis and his son Jeremy were not so fine. When they finally reached the beach for our first break, there were both blaming each other for taking the much longer slalom course they took to get there. After the rest, they broke up. Jeremy hooked up with Sonia in the two-person and Louis ventured off on his own to prove that it wasn’t his fault. When we reached the next beach for lunch the results were inconclusive but they both seemed happier. Kayaking after lunch was tough. I think everybody was pretty tired by that time and just wanted to be back on shore but we had to paddle for an hour to get there. Once on shore, Colleen and I had to say our goodbyes to our tour group since we decided to skip the 12-hour overnight bus ride to Istanbul and instead take a bus to Selçuk.

I must say, that Colleen and I were both a bit nervous waiting on the side of the road for our bus to arrive, not knowing what to expect. When it did pull up we found it to be nicer than that Luftansa plane we took to get here. Each seat had its own television and we were served cookies and ice cream during the 4-hour ride. The bus, however, only took us as far as Aydin where we then boarded a dolmuş (mini-bus) to Kuşadasi and then transfer to another dolmuş to Selçuk. We could have taken a taxi from Aydin directly to Selçuk but where is the fun in that. It was nearly 11 PM when we finally arrived at our hotel so after a quick snack we headed to bed.

In the morning we took a dolmuş to Ephesus – also known as Efes which is coincidentally (or perhaps not) the name of the most popular beer in Turkey. Our plan was to arrive at Ephesus ahead of the heat and the crowds. We failed. It was already scalding hot at 8:30 AM and humid. And while at first there didn’t appear to be many tourists, we quickly discovered that they all entered from the upper entrance and as a result we spent the morning like salmon swimming upstream to all the sites. After admiring the library and other ruins we decided to walk (I don’t know why in this heat) back into town via the temple of Artemis. Only one complete column of this wonder of the ancient world still exists and is now the home to a couple of storks that have made their nest on top. Next we escaped the heat by heading in to the Ephesus museum. Both the air conditioning and the relics were worth the price of entry. After lunch we did a quick tour of the Basilica of St. John (of which little remains, although much more than the Temple of Artesmis) and to the Isa Bey Camii which was a mosque built in the 14th century and still operates today (although it’s had some work down). Next we took a dolmuş to Şirince about 9 km away. This is the town where our cherry wine originated. After tasting a number of other fruit wines (raspberry, strawberry, mulberry, blackberry, peach) Colleen and decided that there are some things that should just stay in Turkey. Tomorrow our adventure will relocate to Cappadocia… stay tuned.