October 17, Konya
Another chilly morning in Goreme: clear and cold. We woke up early to make sure we'd be at the bus station for our 8am bus and packed up. Our laundry was done, but smelling slightly of Russian tobacco. Still, the 10L seemed well spent, and went directly to the Russian's wife, who also offered us a US dollar if we'd take Pakize, the kitten, with us. Tempting! but customs might not approve... Andor and his wife were to be leaving in November for Japan for a few months, and I hoped the kitten would keep her home (though considering how much the kids loved her, I think she'll be fine).
We watched the balloon parade again... and watched the purple balloon go down in Goreme village... again. We were pretty glad we opted not to take a balloon ride... again!
We made our goodbyes to Kevin, the kitty, Andor and the sleepy Canadians. After a yummy, and early, breakfast, we were a bit surprised that Andor didn't offer us a ride to the bus, considering he had driven the Korean girls down the hill, but oh well. He did tell us that the bus was unlikely to come before 8:15, so we had lots of time to walk. Um, thanks!
We walked into town, faintly disbelieving that we were actually leaving Goreme: we had a lovely time and could easily have stayed another day, so we weren't even worried if we missed our bus. The bus was, however, almost an hour late, so we couldn't have missed it if we tried. We were put on a minibus to Nevsehir and then took the big bus to Konya. Steve was a little alarmed at a tuvalet stop: I had gone to the bathroom, and was met at the door to the washroom by the bus attendent, who hurried me back to the bus. I jumped onto the bus at the back as it started pulling away, only to see Steve standing up saying WAIT my wife! It's ok, I'm here! Once again, we were impressed by the bus service in Turkey: our 4.5 hour bus ride cost 20L each and we were again treated to tea and drinks, cookies and kolonya. What service!
The trip was otherwise uneventful, and arriving in Konya, we headed straight to the Nevsehir counter to buy our tickets to Antalya. The departure time was *shudder* 1:30am! Yuck! Fortunately, there was a rather nifty luggage-leaving place where they stored our bags in a watched room for some 3L per bag.
Light-shouldered and light-hearted, we walked a few hundred metres out of the otogar to the tram station, where we purchased two cards that said '2' on them for two lire each. We weren't quite sure what the ticket-seller meant by them, as we could tell from the transit map in the tram that we got on at the border of one zone to where we wanted to go. Hmmm...
We got off at the last stop, which was Aladdin's Hill, and stepped out into our first big city since Istanbul. Konya has some 600,000 and is noted for being Turkey's "Bible Belt" (um... Koran Belt?) where people are notoriously conservative. The first thing we noticed was that drivers were actually paying attention to traffic lights. Facinating! This must be a conservative city!
Knowing Konya was fairly conservative, I had worn a long-sleeved shirt. I was pleased to see lots of women in tshirts, even some in skirts that came to the knee (though with heavy black tights). The university crowd comes to Alladin's Hill to hang out and picnic, so perhaps that was the prevailing influence.
After a brief stop at a pharmacy (eczane) to get some deoderant and contact lens solution (for 15L!), we decided to get lunch at a 1L tavuk doner stand. Along with some seftali suyu (peach juice) and a small bag of freshly-roasted pistachios, we headed back onto Aladdin's Hill for a picnic ourselves. Aladdin's Hill is a small conical park right in the middle of Konya. The tram comes from the university, past the otogar, and rings the hill before heading back out to the otogar etc. There were paths, and grass, and benches, and some mighty plump-looking pigeons. A young entrepreneur tried to sell us a wilted rose which he had obviously just picked from the flowerbed. We declined.
We had a delicious lunch and felt refreshed after our longish bus ride, and set out on foot to find the market area, the Mevlana Museum and a little felt store called Ikonium.
From where we had gotton on the Hill, I figured we were fairly near the road that we needed to take, so we started walking around the hill. We walked quite a while, but didn't really realize why we weren't finding the road to take until we saw the same mosque... again! We asked a passerby and found out we had actually ringed the hill and were now on the exact opposite side of where we needed to be. *sigh* Fortunately it was a pleasant walk!
The bazaar area was nice, all kinds of winding streets, but I was determined to find the Ikonium store, which the L.P. says is having a new take on the tradition of felt-making. After some getting lost, some asking directions, and some escaping the clutches of the carpet salesman who provided the directions, we found the store. We were greeted by Rahbia, the Argentinian wife of Mehmet, the felt-maker, who showed us the process, the workers, the merchandise and a BIG plate of sekker treats. It was deeply, deeply cool, and we were so pleased we found the place (even Steve, who was a little dubious). Since they were going to be working into the night trying to finish up an order of traditional sufi dervish hats, we decided to leave our purchases (and the snacks) behind, and go to the Mevlana Museum while we could, and then return in the evening to pick up our stuff and hang out some more.
The Museum was only a five-minute walk away, and was flanked by a beautiful mosque. We paid our entrance fee, and were immediately overcome by the loveliness of the courtyard with its ablution fountain, green grass, and slinky kitties. Some of you may recall that we had Helen Tripp, our officient, read a few poems from a medieval Turkish poet, Rumi: Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi was a 13th Century mystic who founded the Sufi (Whirling Dervish) order, as well as being a lovely poet. He lived and died on Konya, which houses his remains and those of his disciples in a complex which contains a shrine, a dervish dance-hall, living quarters, mosque and, since 1927, a museum.
Besides the whole poetry thing, which we found inspiring at our ceremony, Rumi was also an incredibly wise and profound religious leader. You can learn more about Rumi at: http://www.mevlana.net/.
""Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are." Rumi
After taking a number of pictures of the exterior of the 13th C Mevlana Mausoleum with its turquoise-topped minaret, we spurned the blue plastic shoe covers, and opted to take off our sandals before entering the mausoleum. You're not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, which is a shame, as there were many wonderful things to look at. We saw silk-and-silver carpets, silk clothes that actually belonged to Rumi (700 years old!) that were still bright and lusterous, korans of every variety, the tombs of Rumi and his followers... oh, and our guide. No, we didn't enter the museum with a guide, but we ended with one. As we were oohing and aahing over the goodies in the glass cases, a man told us what we were seeing, and then directed us to look at another case, and another... it dawned on Steve and I at the same time that he wasn't a nice guy educating some awestruck tourists: he was just wearing his guide-id badge tucked into his shirt.
We didn't mind too much, though. He was knowledgeable and didn't rush us (except a little at the end).
One of the things that was nice is that he explained the meaning of a little fountain in the front yard: the first ledge symbolizes the person who enters the world alone, then the two ledges are meeting ones' spouse, then three ledges for a spouse and children, then the children leave (two ledges), then your pass out of the world alone. Without him, we thought it was a pretty fountain.
We offered him 10L because it was all that we had! He accepted with good grace and offered to wait for us so he could show us his 'brother's store' where we could buy some postcards (since I had advised that was all we were buying in Konya).
After the tour, we hung around taking some more pictures, and walking around the back of the building, until we were kindly informed by a security guard that the museum closed at 5. We thought it was 5:30 (or at least the L.P. said it was!) so apologized profusely. No wonder the guide was rushing at the end -- the place was closing!
We were led to the brother's store, which principally sold china, like the kind for sale in Avanos. We declined, which forced the owner to dig in a dusty old box, from which he produced a handful of postcards. We bought three or four, and escaped without any pottery.
After a quick stop by an ATM, we headed back to Ikonium, where we were treated to tea, more candy, and as many pictures as our cameras could hold. The girls making the scarves were a little leery of having their pictures taken, but were good-natured all the same. We chatted a bit with Mehmet and Rahdia, who showed us the partially completed sufi hats -- very cool! I desperately wanted to make a scarf, and if we had been spending the night in Konya, I would probably have begged my way into the shop to do just that! Oh well -- when we win the lottery, I'll go back and make a scarf!
We asked the Ikonium people for a good and cheap lokanta (ucuz (ojoos) and nefis (nef-ees)), and they recommended the Damla Restaurant -- I don't know exactly where it is, except for just around the corner from Ikonium, and it has a green and yellow sign. The food was amazing! I had a kuzu something that was very good, but Steve had a local specialty (finir something or other) that was the most tender and tasty mutton. Damn! it was good.
We headed back to the main street and walked back up to Aladdin's Hill. The streets were quiet and a bit eerie. We didn't feel unsafe, exactly, but just a little more aware. The tram came along promptly, and we were pleased to find out that the transit cards we had been given were actually good for two trips! So we got to ride back to the otogar on the same ticket. Yay!
Our bus left at 1:30am and we wanted to make sure we'd be back in plenty of time, so we arrived back at the otogar at about 9:30pm, thinking four hours wasn't too long to wait. We weren't counting on the most rock-hard and horrible of seats, or the slightly creepy guy who stared at me while Steve slept, or the constant smoking by other waiitng people. Well, it wasn't that bad, but the seats were Really Very Uncomftable.
We were entertained by a young man who had done the tour guide training but ended up as a sales person for a company that made... farming equipment? We were tired. He was very happy to practice his English skills and we had a nice chat for a half-hour or so. He told us that when he was in university, sometimes if he was short on money, he'd come and sleep in the otogar as it was warm and safe. He must have a bum of steel! He was waiting for a Sekker Bayrami package to come on the bus from his family; he hoped it was food :-)
At about 1pm, we moved over to the berth the bus was due to come in on. At quarter after, we were approached by a young man in a suit (which means nothing, as even the guy with the dustpan is wearing a suit), who asked us if we were taking the Nevsehir bus to Antalya. We replied yes, and he told us to follow him, which we did. To the other side of the building, then out the building, across the parking lot, across the street... we were getting a little nervous, and he was on his cellphone the whole time, and I occasionally caught the word 'turista', which didn't help my suspicion level.
Fortunately, the bus pulled up on the side of the road a few minutes later: I guess it didn't want to go all the way into the otogar when we were the only passengers. We climbed aboard and into our seats, where we happily fell asleep. We were awakened in the night a few times -- me by feeling something crawling on my shoulder; Steve by something biting his hand three times. We came to the conclusion it must have been either a spider, a wasp or, most likely, a scorpion, but since he crushed it and threw it away, we didn't know. The bites were uncomfortable but not life-threatening (as I'm sure you guessed).
All in all, it was a slightly sucky evening, followed by a more-than-slightly sucky night on the bus, but it was still better than wasting precious waking hours being on a bus. We knew we'd be happy in the morning when we would reach Cirali in time to take a dip in the Mediterranean.
Well then.
No comments:
Post a Comment