2010 - Turkey

2010 - Turkey - Days 1 and 2 - Travel Days

Tuesday was full of airports and flights. We arrived at the Boise airport around 8:30 am. Our first flight to Minneapolis was on a very small plane, of just 4 seats in a row, and we were on the back row, so we couldn’t decline our seats that were straight up. It was very uncomfortable and cramped, and so loud with the engine noise. Also, we were by the only toilet on the flight, so there was a steady line up of people next to us. It was our shortest leg of the trip fortunately, on 2.5 hours. When we arrived in Minneapolis we immediately boarded our next flight to Amsterdam. That was a much nicer flight with rows of 8 across. That was an 8.5 hour flight, and fairly comfortable. In Amsterdam, we had 3 hours til we could board our next flight. We looked through the shops, read, and ate some yummy dutch pastries. Our last leg of our journey was from Amsterdam to Istanbul, a 3.5 hour flight. I was pretty tired at his point and was able to sleep a good portion of our flight. Once in Istanbul, we had some long lines to pass through customs, got our luggage fairly quickly, and met an agent from our hotel and drove 30 mins to our hotel. All in all, we were 24 hours traveling. The ride to our little fancy hotel was interesting. We passed nice apartments, to really dumpy looking apartments. The traffic was scary, no one bothered with the lines on the road or using blinkers. We passed old city walls built in the 1300’s by the Byzantines and a Roman aqua duct. It was a bustling city of 14 million people. We have a cute little hotel and they are very friendly. We took a 2 hour nap, then had a meeting with our tour group and guide, named Hakan, and had a nice buffet dinner in the hotel.

2010 - Turkey - Day 3 - Istanbul, Turkey

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Today was a busy day. We met at 8:00 am. to see the Blue Mosque. It is the most famous mosque in Istanbul. It was big and beautiful. Afterwards, we went to the Topkapi Palace, where the sultans lived and ran the government for hundreds of years. Now it is a big museum. It has many courtyards and gates and buildings. The first area had the headquarters, or the “Whitehouse of the sultans”. The second area past the felicity gate was the throne room and the costumes of the sultans for the past 500 years, and the treasury. There was a cool Turkish dagger and an 86 karat diamond with 45 smaller diamonds surrounding it, which was used to decorate the sultan’s turban. The story behind the diamond is interesting. A man found it, thought it was just a pretty but useless rock, and traded it to a spoon maker for some wooden spoons. The spoon maker sold it to the jeweler for 10 pieces of silver. We then came back to the hotel for a short break and left again to go to Sophia’s Mosque. It was built in 500 AD by the Christians with beautiful mosaics. When the Muslims took over 700 years later, they whitewashed, or put plaster over all the Christian mosaics. In 1935 it was turned into a museum, and they took all the plaster off the mosaics. So they were still in good condition. It was the largest mosque or cathedral in the world for 1100 years, until the Cathedral in St. Peter’s square was built in the 1600’s. I liked it much better than the blue mosque. It was beautiful. There was a library and a partitioned off room where the sultan would go to read. We then went to the underground cistern. It was really dark, and supported by several columns. There are fish in the water now, and a little restaurant that will serve you fish. We then went to a couple bazaars. The first was a spice bazaar, selling mostly spices, nuts, and Turkish delight. I made a big mistake on the way out to our bus after leaving the market. I got stopped by some vendors selling knockoff expensive perfume. I am out of perfume, so I thought I would go ahead and get one. He ended up charging me more then our agreed price, when he saw I had more money, the price doubled. So I was a bit upset over that, when another guy told me he would give me 5 for $20 (which is what I spent for the ONE bottle). I said ok, 5 for the price I bought one bottle for, not bad. After I gave him the $20, he said I needed to give him another $10. I said no, and never mind about the whole sale, but he wouldn’t give me my money back. Instead he took 2 bottles out of my bag. I’ve been mad all night about both of those dishonest men, but I’ve learned my lesson now regarding the vendors here. The next bazaar had about 4,000 shops and was a maze! All I bought were some nice bookmarks for me and my kids for $2.50. I’m happy with that purchase. Mom bought a couple nice ceramic bowls. Our evening was spent at a restaurant, featuring traditional Turkish food and entertainment. They served us a strange appetizer plate with random weird stuff. Next was a salad and an eggroll and fried potatoes. The dinner was chicken and rice and veggies, but the chicken was different, it was a thigh that was pounded flat, bones, skin and all. During the most of the dinner, there was a musician and singer. To me, it sounded similar to the call to prayers that come from all the many minarets all over the city 5 times a day. There was then some dancing. They had a few whirling dervishes which was cool. The other dancing was slow and boring. Next were 2 belly dancers. The first part of the dancing was nice. But then they would go around to the men trying to get money, and being very suggestive and dancing on tables, and I felt like I was in a strip club. It was almost 11 pm, and our group was pretty tired from our long day, so we left early.

2010 - Turkey - Day 4 - Troy / Canakkale, Turkey

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Facts about Turkey: 1/12 the size of US. Known as Asia Minor—near east (not middle east) Neighbors are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Georgia, and Armenia. 7 different climate ranges Home of the Sultans, Ottomans, Byzantines, Hittites, Assyrians, Phrygians Marmara area known for sunflowers and seeds and oil, grapes and wine Coastal areas known for olives and olive oil, Turkish tobacco and oranges, tangerines and figs Aegean area for cotton, walnuts, apples and plums Mediterranean for oranges and bananas. Also use greenhouses for vegetables, and tomatoes. South East has the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and Mesopotamia—means the land between the rivers. Haran is found in Mesopotamia. Pistachios are grown from area next to the Euphrates Northern mountains have wheat and barley, cattle, sheep and goats Apricots grown in the central and Eastern Turkey, famous for raisins North area is rice and timber, shipbuilding. Also hazelnuts—85% of world’s hazelnuts are from Turkey. It is a self sufficient country, also rich in copper, gold, tin, iron, silver and aluminum We left our hotel at 8:00 am. and drove 2 hours along the coast heading South West. We had a short stop then drove another 2 hours to the ferry at the Dardanelle. We had about 30 minutes to get some lunch. We had just made sandwiches from breakfast, so we sat outside the restaurant and ate. The only problem we had there was more dishonest vendors to sell “authentic” perfume. They were lucky I didn’t hurt them ;) Our ferry across the Dardanelle into Asia was only 30 minutes. Then we drove about an hour into the old city of Troy to see the ruins and excavations. There wasn’t a lot to see, but that city is 3,000 years old, with lots of history, and it was really cool to be standing there. The drive from Troy to our hotel was another hour or so. We are staying right on the coast of the Aegean Sea in a city called Canakkale. The Trojan horst used in the Hollywood movie of Troy is right across the street from our hotel. It was donated to this city after the making of the movie. We had a little time before dinner so we walked a little on the coast and got some pictures of the horse.

2010 - Turkey - Day 5 - Pergamum, Turkey

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History of Turks—1071 AD was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Turks from Mongolia. After 200 years, it became the Ottoman Empire until World War 1. Today was a long travel day. Total miles were 300 miles traveled by bus. We left our hotel at 8:00 am. and drove south along the coast with our final destination being Kusadasi. At 10:00 am. we had a quick bathroom break, and at noon we stopped for lunch at a little town nearby Pergamum. We sat in the restaurant with our group and ate our sandwiches. The owner of the restaurant sang to us, which was nice. There was also a little shop next to the restaurant and I bought a bag for church, and a really pretty glass blue flower wall hanging. Just a few minutes down the road we saw the hilltop where the acropolis of Pergamum is. It was a big city and the “capital” where the ruler and temples were on the hilltop. This city is mentioned in the Old Testament, being a wicked city, and our guide said the first Christian martyr was killed in this city, by being cooked alive in a big bronze statue of a bull. I think he said his name was Antioch. There is not a lot left, just a few foundations to the city walls and towers and buildings. But it was all original, not reconstructed. It’s always cool to see stones and walls built thousands of years ago. We spent about an hour walking through the Acropolis. We had 30 minutes afterward to look at the vendors’ items and use the bathroom. I didn’t want anything, so I found a spot with a nice view away from most of the crowds. There were a few cats there that I took pictures of. The cats here are pretty friendly, but skinny and some are skittish. I watched them trying to catch bugs to eat, and even licking bugs off the front of cars. I wish I had brought cat food, like some other people on our trip did. I was able to coax one cat over and pet him, and he turned out to be such a love. He was cuddling in my lap and rubbing his head again my arms. I would have taken him home in a heartbeat. We then drove another 2 hours continuing south and had another quick break. We arrived at our hotel around 7:00 pm. It is a right on the coast, in a beautiful area. We had a buffet dinner at 7:30, and I called my family that evening.

2010 - Turkey - Day 6 - Ephesus, Turkey

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Today we left our hotel at 9:30. We drove into Ephesus and our first stop was at the house of Mary. It is believed that Mary and John lived in Ephesus and that is where she lived the last years of her life. They found this house on the top of a hill over Ephesus, and they believe it was her house, because a blind nun had many visions of Mary. After she died, they read through her journals and she had given details about where Mary lived. So they went digging and found the foundation of a small house. They have rebuilt the house, but the foundation and first 1-2 feet are original. There was also some water springs under her house that they say is holy water, and a prayer wall where people tack their prayers. We then went down into Ephesus. I had been here 3 or 4 years ago, but it is an amazing archeological site; a place of one of the 7 churches, and where Mary, and John and Paul lived. At the end of our tour, as we started back to the bus, it started raining really hard! I didn’t bring my umbrella this day, because it looked so nice and sunny this morning. I shared moms with her, but the wind was blowing and it was coming down in sheets, that the only dry place on me was my face. My shoes were soaked through, and my jacket I just had to take off because it was drenched. I was so cold, but fortunately Mel from our group let me borrow his jacket for the remainder of the day, which I was so grateful for. After Ephesus, we went to see St. John’s Basilica. They built a big basilica over where they say John was buried. There is not much left of it today. They had a baptismal font in the center, and I found it interesting that it was a font for baptism by immersion. Our last stop was at the place of the site for the temple of Artemis, which was one of the ancient wonders of the world. It’s a big hole now with one reconstructed pillar. The British came to excavate it and took all they found and left a big crater. The locals call it the English hole in the ground. The temple had over 100 of these massive columns, it must have been magnificent. I had a picture taken with me standing at the base of the column, and I’m barely visible. We then went back to our hotel and arrived around 5:00 pm. We had a couple hours before dinner, and I had been chilled all day being wet from the rain, so I wanted to go soak in the hot tub in the hotel. Josie and I went down, and the Jacuzzi was not very warm. After a few minutes we went into the pool and it was warmer there. So we swam in the pool for about 20 minutes. Dinner was wonderful, as it was last night. We plan to read for a bit and relax until bedtime.

2010 - Turkey - Day 7 - Pamukkale

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We left Kusadasi at 9:00 am. We drove for 1.5 hours before our first break and stopped for lunch around noon. We had to drive 150 miles today. The bus must drive pretty slowly; it took us about 4 hours driving time before we arrived in Pamukkale. As soon as we arrived it started to rain, but after we walked along the pathway into the site, it stopped and we had about 1 hour of somewhat nice but cool weather. There is not much left of this city, it was also a site of one of the seven churches and also the place of Philip’s martyrdom. He was crucified upside down and stoned. In the 4th century, a church was built in the city to honor him, but it only stood for 100 years before an earthquake mostly leveled it. The most impressive thing about his city on the hilltop was not the ruins, but the limestone terraces filled with hot mineral water. They call it the cotton castle. Tourists had to take their shoes off to walk through it, but it was mostly covered with water, so you’d want to anyway. It felt so good on my cold feet. I wore sandals today for this purpose. But the rest of the day, I had cold feet. I loved walking through the water and seeing this amazing site. It began raining again while I was out on the terraces, and I had my umbrella with me, but it was a cheap thing, and the wind was blowing, and it completely destroyed my umbrella that I threw it away. So I was wet and cold again for a good part of the day. We took a shuttle bus to the exit and our bus, although I backtracked a ways to take some pictures of the necropolis, “the city of the dead”. Our hotel is just 5 minutes away from the ruins, with nice hot spring pools. We had a buffet dinner at 7:30, and then I spent an hour with several others from our tour in the hot spring pools.

2010 - Turkey - Day 8 - Travel Day

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Today was just a travel day. We left our hotel in Pamukkale at 9:00 am. to drove to Konya. Before we left the area, we stopped at a lookout place with a pond and ducks at the base of the “cotton castle”. We were able to get some nice pictures. We had 3 stops along the way for bathroom breaks and lunch. I bought a couple shirts for me and Megan and a keychain. At lunch there were so many hungry cats. A lot of us fed most of our lunches to the cats. As we were driving through the countryside, Hakan pointed out the city of Colossia, where one of the seven churches were, and the epistle to the Colossians from the New Testament was to that city. We arrived at our hotel in Konya around 5:00 pm. We went for a walk around the block looking for a grocery store to buy lunch and snack items. I also bought treats to take home to my kids.

2010 - Turkey - Day 9 - Konya, Cappadocia

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A little about the tulip: The tulips originated in Turkey. The name of the flower is Lalah and it is a holy flower to the Turks. It has one bulb, one flower, and blooms one time a year. The name has the same letter and syllables as the one god, Allah. When a Dutch king came to visit Turkey he loved the tulips and asked to take some bulbs home to Holland. They were wrapped in a cloth that sounded like “tulip”, so that is where the name came from. We started our day driving around Konya and seeing some 12th century buildings. We saw an astronomy building and some mosques. There is also a tel (a hill with ruins underneath) that belonged to the ancient city of Iconium. There is now a 12th century mosque and a corner of a building that used to be a huge sultans palace. Now only a corner of the building remains. We then went to the Mevlana Museum. Mevlana was an important religious man in the Muslim faith. He had tolerance and love for all religions and people. It is also the home of the whirling dervishes. This building was the monastery where Mevlana and his followers lived. Now it is a burial place of Mevlana and many other prominent religious figures. There were lovely art pieces inside and calligraphy and many fancy old copies of the Koran. We then left Konya, traveling along the same route as the Silk Road in the ancient times. We have followed that road the past couple days, and will continue to follow it until we leave Cappodicia. Every 10-15 miles along the Silk Road were forts like hotels, for the merchants to stay in, called caravanserai. We stopped at a caravanserai about halfway between Konya and Cappodocia. It was a beautiful fort, much bigger and nicer than I imagined a traveler’s fort to look like. It had a little mosque in the center of a big square, and tall fortress walls surrounding it. There were bath rooms for men and woman and a huge stable for the camels. While there, I bought some T-shirts for my boys and Christa. Our lunch stop was an hour further. We bought some bread and tuna at a grocery store the night before, and had that for lunch. We arrived in Cappodicia around 3:30. We stopped at a lookout point over the valley first and took some pictures. I also bought a bracelet and necklace for me, and a couple small purses and a dagger. Then we went to the open air museum. That was a place of many dwellings and temples carved into the rock and mountainsides. Every where you look in this valley are caves and homes carved into the rock formations. It’s incredible. The place of the museum seemed to have several 11th and 13th century temples, so it must have been an important center place. One side of the gorge was where they kept pigeons for fertilizer. We spent 1.5 hours walking around these dwellings and temples. These caves were created by Christians beginning the 1-3rd centuries to escape and hide from persecution. They were used for at least 1,000 years. I bought some earrings fro my girls here before we left. After we left the open air museum, we drove a few minutes to see the fairy chimney stones. We spent 10 minutes there getting pictures. We then arrived at our hotel a little before 7:00 pm, had a buffet dinner at 7:30, and an early night to bed.

2010 - Turkey - Day 10 - Cappodocia

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We left our hotel at 8:30 and drove to one of the valleys here in Cappodocia. The valley had many rock pillars all over. We took a walk through the pillars getting pictures and getting lost. It was fun and beautiful. Then we drove to another valley. This valley still had several rock pillars but they had mushroom-like tops on them. I climbed up the hill with some other members of my group and was amazed at how beautiful everything was. They took a few pictures of me at the top. It was fun. Our lunch stop was at a carpet factory. They showed us how carpets were made. They use the silk worm cocoons to make the silk, and they demonstrated how this was done. They fed us Turkish pizza while showing us all the different carpets. Mom had hoped to buy a small piece to put on her chest, but the cheapest piece we found was $190. The first piece mom wanted was $1,800. Mom, Josie and I went out to the bus after awhile while several others from our group purchased carpets. I ended up falling asleep until we arrived at our next stop, the underground city. The underground city was a hideout for the Christians from the Arab raiders in the 7th century. They didn’t live there year round, only during times of hiding. We walked for about 45 minutes through all the caverns and tunnels. We saw a church, wineries, a stable, kitchens, and several rooms, a lot which were used for food storage. I bought my boys an onyx chess set here. Hakan has been our tour guide, and he is great. He always has us laughing and takes great care of our group. Our bus driver is Sedat. He doesn’t speak much English, but he is always smiling and helpful. We then went to 3 different photo stops. The first was of pigeon valley; a valley where pigeons live in the holes in the rocks. The next was at a place that Hakan called “Swiss cheese city”. The last stop was a beautiful panoramic of the valley. While there, I bought 2 pretty scarves for my girls. We took a picture of the Red River, Turkey’s longest river, almost 1,000 miles long. Half of the group went to a pottery shop, and the rest of us went back to the hotel. We will have dinner at 7:00 and leave for our show of the Whirling Dervishes at 9:00 pm. Mom and Josie both took short naps while waiting until our bus to depart at 9:00 pm. I was reading and not sleepy at all until a few minutes before we had to leave. Then it was really hard for me to have the desire to go anywhere because I was so sleepy. I just wanted to sleep, and slept on the 20 minute drive to get there. The show was held in a 13th century caravanserai, which in itself was really cool. The show was held in the stables, the only building large enough for a crowd to sit, and has a roof. The show was 50 minutes, although 15 minutes would have been enough. It began with all the men bowing to each other for 5 minutes, then a singer for about 10 minutes, then the spinning for about 30 minutes. It’s not everyday you see grown men with tall caps and long flowing white skirts spinning. It’s fun to watch. They had amazing stamina to spin almost constantly for 30 minutes with their arms over their heads. I fell asleep through the last half of the show. If only it had started earlier in the evening, I would have enjoyed it much more.

2010 - Turkey - Day 11 - Ankara

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We left our hotel in Cappodocia at 7:30, heading to Ankara, the nation’s capital. We had a bathroom break around 9:30 and lunch break at 11:30. We finished off our tuna sandwiches for lunch. We arrived in Ankara around 3:00 and Hakan pointed out some places of interest in the city. He also talked about the first president in Turkey since our next stop was going to be at his memorial. I however, missed all of that because I was sleeping and didn’t wake up until we arrived at the monument. The monument was huge! I’ve never been to D.C. to see Abraham Lincoln’s memorial, but I’m sure it isn’t near as big. There is a huge courtyard and his memorial sits atop a staircase. All the side buildings are a big museum, filled with pictures and memorials of his life, and depicting all the wars he was in before he became president. His actual burial place was on that level, and there was a live cam feed for that room. On one side of the courtyard was a long walkway with statues of lions on each side. It reminded me of the sacred way in China. We then went to the Anatolian museum. It’s a historical museum, dating from prehistoric times, to the Roman/Greek period in the 13th century. Most of the items came from archeological sites in a city about an hour away from Ankara. Most of it was Hittite, with some Assyrian and Phrygian. It was very interesting. The rest of the evening was on our own. No dinner was provided tonight. We walked down the street from our hotel and stopped at a little diner of café. I ordered a pizza, and mom and Josie had burgers. The café workers couldn’t speak English, but there was a man sitting by our table that translated for us. We gave him a tip for helping us. As we came back to the hotel, Hakan and a few others from our group were going to a pub and invited me and go along. Mom quickly spoke up and said I was tired. After they left, I asked her what she would do if I had said yes, and she said she wouldn’t have let me go. Good thing I really didn’t want to go anyway. :D The population of Ankara is 4 million.

2010 - Turkey - Day 12 - Ankara

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Facts about Turkey: Churchill was a Hitler to the Turks in the first world war. Turks deny killing the Armenians. Hakan said they would not live peaceably in the country so they were asked to leave. He said they died to raiders and sickness. Today we came back to Istanbul. We left our hotel at 7:30 am. and stopped for a rest stop at 9:30. At the market there I bought a keychain for Mike, more cookies (I love the cookies!), and a necklace. We had our lunch stop a little before noon. We got some lentil soup (Josie tomato) which was really good. I also ordered some cheese filled pastry, but didn’t like it very much. We had one more rest stop until we reached Istanbul, and the traffic was terrible! It took us 30 minutes to get to our hotel that was a couple blocks away. Before we went to the hotel, we went on a Bosphorous river cruise. We had a big boat all to ourselves. It was fun to see the city from the water’s perspective. It was sunny and pretty warm, not too windy, until the boat turned around, then it got pretty cold, so we left the deck and went inside where it was warm, but we could still see the view well. After the cruise we came to our fancy hotel. Too bad we have such a short stay. We will be leaving the hotel at 2:45 am to go to the airport. We had a farewell dinner at a nearby restaurant. We had musicians playing for us, and some people danced. We had a good evening, and I really enjoyed our group of fellow travelers. Turkey has been wonderful and I have loved each day here.