Turkiye: Arrival and Cappadocia

When preparing to backpack through a foreign country, it is important to remember that you will be the most exhausted you have ever been in your life. I really should have worked out a caffeine IV drip before we went.


Our highly ambitious schedule went like this:
- Depart DC on Friday evening, layover in Chicago before overnight flight to Istanbul. 
- Arrive in Istanbul on Saturday evening. Take the metro to the central bus terminal.
- Overnight bus (11 hours) to Nevşehir, and local bus to Göreme
- Spend all day Sunday, Sunday night, and all day Monday in Göreme
- 3 hour bus ride to Konya
- Spend Monday night and Tuesday morning in Konya
- 5 hour bus ride to Antalya
- Spend a few hours in Antalya attempting to find a rental car
- 1 1/2 hour drive to Çıralı, arriving very late
- Spend Tuesday night in Çıralı
- Leave early Tuesday morning and drive 3 hours along the Mediterranean coast, stopping in Kaş and Patara along the way
- Spend Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Faralya
- Drive 5 hours to Pamukkale
- Spend Thursday night in the nearby town of Denizli
- Friday morning, take 3 hour bus to Selçuk
- Friday night, take 10 hour bus to Istanbul
- Arrive in Istanbul early Saturday morning. Spend all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Istanbul
- Flight home Tuesday morning


You tired yet? Just wait til you hear how much we did in each place. Just getting from place to place was exhausting enough, but then we threw in loads of walking and hiking on top of it.


I'm going to attempt to do this chronologically, because it seems the most logical (and I'm nothing if not convinced that I'm logical), but I'm sure I will throw in random bits of information here and there as I think of them, so try and stay with me.


Some notes about the language, since I know you're probably wondering how to pronounce all those funky letters. Ç and ş are pronounced like ch and sh respectively. C with no hooky thingy (the technical term for it) is pronounced like a j. I with no dot is pronounced more like uh, while an i with a dot is pronounced more like ih. For example, Çıralı is pronounced kinda like Chuhraluh, while Denizli is pronounced, well, pretty much like it looks. Vowels with two dots over them are pronounced like you have a mouth full of food. So there's your language lesson of the day. Sorry you asked, aren't you?


 Overnight flight means sleeping on the plane. I can never sleep on a plane. And just so you know, the movie selection on Turkish Airlines is at once crappy and highly entertaining. Seven Harry Potter movies? Police Academy? FOUR Police Academies!? ALL the Lethal Weapon movies? Bring it on! No interesting movies made after 1995 with the exception of Black Swan which I already watched on the way to India? Damn you Turkish Airlines!


Also, the seats on their airplanes are a bright turquoisey color, their blankets are a slightly more mellow blue, and the socks and eye masks they provide are two different shades of green, both reminiscent of the color of vomit. That was one ugly flight.


We had been told by the Turkish consulate in DC that, as a U.S. citizen and a green card holder, we could get entry visas upon arrival in Istanbul. No problem. Then we got to Istanbul. Problem. 


The visa desk took one look at hubby's passport and sent us way down to the other end of what felt like the entire airport to talk to a police officer (actually airport security, as it turned out). The officer tells us they need to see hotel reservations or something indicating why we're in Turkey. We only had hotels booked in Göreme and in Istanbul at the end of our trip. Everything in between was going to be kinda fly by the seat of our pants, and therefore unconfirmable. And we didn't have any of the emails confirming those two reservations printed. The officer told us to call the hotels, and our response that we didn't have a phone nearly gave him a heart attack. Apparently it is unheard of to not bring your own cell phone and pay outrageous international roaming charges when you travel. Moron. 


He sends us to a Turkish Airlines information desk (back at the other end of everything) to get online and print the emails. Except that the information desk has no printer. We must go upstairs to the business lounge to use a printer. To get to the business lounge you have to enter an area where only passengers with boarding passes can go. Having just arrived in Istanbul, we obviously don't have boarding passes for a flight out. The guard at the entrance doesn't believe we were sent there by the guy at the info desk, but luckily, after some arguing, he follows us back to the desk and confirms things with the other guy. The guard then confiscates our passports and tells us we can get them back when we return from upstairs. 


So up the stairs we go. And the business lounge is of course at the far side of the terminal. Did I mention we're carrying everything for the trip on our backs? Ten days. On our backs. Back and forth across the airport. We finally get to the lounge only to learn that they have a printer, but no internet. Son of a... 


They tell us to try the hotel next door (inside the airport). We traipse down two flights of stairs (seriously, who designed this place?) and hallelujah, the hotel has both internet and a printer and will let us use them. In fact, the guy was super helpful, showing hubby where to find the necessary keys on the Turkish keyboard and making recommendations about what to see during our trip. As we made our way back across the airport, we marveled at how nice the guy had been. We didn't know yet that, with the exception of airport security and the touts, Turkish people seem to be the nicest and most helpful people on the planet.


We get back to the security checkpoint to retrieve our passports. Oh no. It's a different security guard! "Umm...you're holding our passports" we tell him. "What?" Oh crap crap crap crap crap. Then suddenly, just as I feel the urge to cry coming on, recognition flashes across his face. He reaches under the podium, checks the photos in our passports, and hands them back over. We nearly crumble with relief. It would have really sucked to spend our vacation in the Istanbul airport. Like that Tom Hanks movie. That bombed.


We head back across the airport and get the brilliant idea to stop at the first batch of security officers instead of walking all the way to the second group, who we'd originally been directed to. This officer doesn't understand why we would need his approval. Finally, after explaining everything that had happened so far, he takes a look at hubby's passport and our printouts. He makes a phone call, then gives us the all clear. We return to the visa desk. And are then sent back to the original batch of security officers. The visa desk doesn't care that we already got the all clear. So we traipse back down the hall. 


While we're waiting to talk to the officers, an African guy behind us asks if we're having trouble getting our visas too. We tell him our story and he looks terrified. 


We again talk to the officer and show him our printouts. After much staring at the papers and staring at us, he finally writes about two words on a slip of paper and hands it to us. We hand it to the visa desk and bam, we get our visas. As we walk away, we hear the asshole security officer say to the African man in an angry voice "why are you here!?" We make a mad dash for the exit.


The metro in Istanbul was actually pretty simple. On that first night anyway. You put two Turkish lira into the machine and out pops a plastic token you put in the turnstile. Easy peasy. The bus station (called an otogar, which I will call it from this point forward because it's habit) and the airport are on the same metro line. Super simple introduction to Istanbul's public transportation system. 


Once we returned to Istanbul, however, we learned that all forms cost two lira, whether you're going one stop or across town, and if you switch from one type of transport to another, you have to pay again. They have metro, trains, buses, trams, and something called funicular (we never did figure out what that is). And none of them connect. No matter where you're going, you inevitably have to get off, walk a block or two, and get on the next mode of transport. Meaning you have to pay again. Simple my ass. 


Anyhoo, we got to the otogar and proceeded to wander around looking for a place to buy our bus tickets. This is more difficult than it sounds, as otogars in Turkey are really just about a million different bus company offices lined up. So you either just pick one and go buy your ticket, or you kill hours going from place to place comparing prices and times and then trying to remember which place worked out best.


This is when we learned that Turkey is home to some of the most obnoxious people you will ever meet. Now, in India, people call out to you trying to sell you things as you walk by. And there are people outside every restaurant trying to get you to come in and eat there. But in India, once you get past them they leave you alone and move on to the next person. 


Not in Turkey. Oh no, in Turkey they start yelling louder and louder and then they just chase you. One guy followed us all the way across the otogar trying to get us to go to a company that was back on the other side of the otogar (and it's a BIG otogar). Another half a dozen people or so followed us around trying to sell us tickets. These are not legit tickets. You will give them your money and when it's time for the bus you will have no seat. You've been warned. 


I handled this by pretending I don't speak English (hey, I could be European, they don't know...or at least I like to think I could be). My husband, on the other hand, engaged with each and every one of these guys.


Hey honey! Haven't you learned anything from living in big cities where you have no choice but to completely ignore the people begging on the street? Or from walking around India with me and seeing how much I get harassed if I so much as make eye contact? No? Ok, well then will you follow my lead and shut up? No? Ok, then I'm going to go get the bus tickets. You have fun here.


So we got our tickets and started the first leg of our trip. Buses in Turkey are waaaaay cooler than any method of public long-distance transportation in the U.S. Maybe because people in Turkey actually use it. Whatever the reason, they are cleaner and more comfortable, something I soon learned cannot be said about anything else in the country. And there's a guy on the bus whose sole purpose is to provide you with drinks and snacks. For free!


The bus stops every few hours for a bathroom break. During one such stop, I walked into the bathroom to see all the sinks taken up by women washing their feet. Ewww and what the? Then I realized it was almost 5am. Morning prayer time. Apparently foot washing is required before entering a mosque. And there is a mini-mosque in every bus stop and airport and probably a few other random places like that. Oh and another thing about public restrooms...they all cost money. Yep, you have to pay to pee. Regardless of that particular restroom's state of cleanliness. But moving on...


The bus dropped us at the otogar Nevşehir, where we took another much smaller bus to the otogar in Göreme, where the guy at the information booth called our hotel to send someone to pick us up. And thus began the best hotel experience of our trip.


The hotel, SOS Cave Hotel, had been recommended by my husband's Turkish teacher (he's been taking a class this semester with the Global Language Network, and it came in handy let me tell ya). She stayed at this hotel during her honeymoon last year and had recommended it to several people already. She let the owner know we're her friends (I've never actually met this lady but I'll take it), and we were therefore treated like royalty. I guess when you learn of a place by word of mouth and you actually go, they hope you will then pass it on to someone else so they want to make a good impression. And boy did they. 


We got a free upgrade to the honeymoon suite, a room in a cave, where even the bed was cut from the stone, and which had the most awesome jacuzzi ever.

They prepared our room early so we could take a nap before sightseeing (the flight and bus had worn us out, needless to say). They told us how to get to the Göreme Open Air Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Sight made up of entire monasteries cut into the rocks.

We hiked all OVER that place, climbing in and out of caves and just generally running around like crazy people. As we worked our way out of the museum, surrounded by "fairy chimneys" and watching the sunset, we heard the evening call to prayer coming from a nearby mosque. It was hauntingly beautiful. That was the first and last time we would enjoy hearing it.


The hottie from the hotel (oops, sorry, photo!)

He's feeding a pigeon in the dining room. It sounds really weird but was really cool at the time. Especially when it ate out of my hand.


Anyway, the hottie from the hotel picked us up at the museum and drove us to a whirling dervish performance the hotel had booked for us when we said we wanted to go at the last minute (they were good at that kind of thing).


The whirling dervishes were awesome to say the least. I know it was all done up for tourists, like a luau in Hawaii, which is a shame since it is technically a religious thing...but I don't care. It was amazing. The sanctity of the whole thing was already kinda destroyed by my incessant singing of a line from The Sound of Music anyway ("she could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl" from How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria in case you were wondering).


After they finished, they came back out and did a small repeat allowing cameras. I can't get the video to upload, so you'll just have to make due with a photo.

Ok, it looks pretty goofy in a photo, but it was actually hypnotic and sent chills down my spine. I'm not going to go into the history of it, but you can read about it here.


Hottie (ok ok, Hussein) again picked us up, recommended a place for dinner and dropped us there, making sure we knew how to get back to the hotel after we ate (we could actually see the hotel from the restaurant, I think we would've been ok). The food was amazing. Mine was cooked in a clay pot they cracked open at the table! Unfortunately, because nowhere in Turkey seemed to have heat even though it's winter, we had to eat quickly to keep the food from getting cold. (Our hotel room did have a space heater...the last one to have heat or hot water until we got to Denizli.)


Monday morning we woke up, said "we want to do a tour," and five seconds later the owner had us booked on a day tour of Cappadocia (the region). 


The first stop was Derinkuyu, an underground city, which is exactly what it sounds like. There are only 8 floors which are open to the public. For the life of me I can't remember how many floors there are in the city, but 8 is plenty freaky enough for me. Those 8 floors are 300 steps each way. And as a defensive technique, many of the tunnels have very low ceilings to slow down the enemy. Try duck walking up the stairs to my 9th floor apartment...that's pretty much what it was like.

I don't know who this person is, but this was not the lowest point of the tunnel and it still looks pretty bad. All of the other photos are too out of focus to really see what's going on. Hubby is an excellent cameraman. 

The 8 story ventilation shaft. How much would it suck to fall down that thing?

The next stop was Ihlara Valley, which we only hike about a 4km portion of. Monks hid in the caves carved in the cliffs when their nearby monastery was under attack (which was also carved into cliffs...).

And the monastery (well, part of it anyway...way too many photos to show all of it):

Thankfully, that was all of the hiking for the day. The next few stops were just some panoramic photo ops.

We returned to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and headed for the otogar. 


Next stop: Konya!