Sunday, June 29, 2014

Nabeel - Istanbul - Week 5

Kap A Doh Kia
Taken from my personal blog:
https://nabeelinturkorea.blogspot.com/
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Hello everybody! Like I said in my previous post I am sorry for the delay. A post about my Kapadokya trip is long overdue. Honestly, one of the reasons why I have put off posting this for a long time too is because of the difficulty filtering through the pictures and choosing which ones to include here because it is soo hard to describe the experience I had in just words and pictures.

Before I jump into the meat of my Kapadokya I trip I would just like to mention that one day after work we had gone to Taksim Square for dinner and encountered this peaceful protest on Istiklal Street.
Riot police were on standby in the off chance that peace turned into violence. I was smart enough to stay clear of any of these activities.


Now onto my weekend trip to Kapadokya. We (Boming, Jennifer, and I), the 3 Michigan interns at OzU spent two days there. It took 12 hours by charter bus to get to and from there. It was not so painful to go by bus because we were able to sleep for a majority of the time.

Day 1:
We arrived in the Kapadokya region in the morning and checked into our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the two guys that ran the hotel along with the beautifully decorated terrace.

cool old-fashioned key to our room :)


The hotel was conveniently named Terrace Hotel. We enjoyed a breakfast cooked by our wonderful hosts on the terrace. This accomodation ran us around 33 TL per night which was around $15 per night per person.

Our hosts were very helpful in helping us figure out the best way to make the most of our short 2 days in Kapadokya. There were two tours that were the most popular (red and green tour) and each one took basically the whole day. So it was decided that the first day we spend exploring places on the red tour and on day two we spend exploring the green tour. Our host mentioned that it was possible to do the red tour by scooter so I decided to rent one because it was cheaper than a guided tour and more of an adventure

On day 1 I completed the red tour without the help of a guide by scooter and on day 2 I was advised that the green tour was too much driving and harder to complete by scooter so I did a guided tour instead.
Rocking the vintage style helmet :)

The first place I visited was Çavuşin, a small but beautiful mountain-side town. Here you could find a beautiful landscape with a mix of cliffs, desert, and old mountainside cave dwellings.




After cavusin I rode up to avunos which was about a 20 km away. Other than the famous pottery there wasn't much else worth seeing so after looking at very collerful and exotic potter we headed down to pasabagi and zelve


This was a cave church. Talk about simple. 
Open air museum in Zelve. You can explore the cave houses carved out of the sides of the cliffs

This area of the town is popular for the mystical fairy chimneys also known as the weird mushroom shaped rock formations
In the devrent valley there were supposedly rock formations resembling different animals. This was the only one I could find, a rock camel. 
My last stop on the tour was the goreme open air museum. This is the most popular museum in the area.

I made it back to the hotel by 530 pm in the evening. I had skipped out on lunch and breakfast so I was really hungry by that time. I made it my next task to find dinner and my trip would not have been complete without the famous Testi Kebap:
Its customary for the waiter to break open the clay jar in front of you with a short saber

After dinner we explored one of the main cliffs of the town in which you can see many beautiful panoramas. This was the view of the city at night.

Just taking some silly pictures in a rug shop with a traditional kapadokyan headdress on.

Day 2:

On day 2 we woke up at 4am to catch the launching of many hot air balloons. Kapadokya is famous for its balloon tours but instead of coughing up 200 USD we just went to where we watched the sunset to watch the balloons and sunrise

panoramic view. It was amazing seeing how precise the balloon pilots were in their flights. It's crazy how close to the rocks the balloons are floating.
Definitely worth waiting for 2 hours after 4am for the view. Had a great nap back at the hotel afterwards.
We woke up promptly at 830 am to depart for our guided green tour. I am glad I took the guided tour because the destinations of this trip were very far from where we were. It would have been very hard to navigate on my own.
Cool tree decorated with eyes of nazar. These are very popular in middle eastern and western asian countries. The folklore behind it is that they soak up all negative energy aimed towards you or your home.
This was a yemekhane, or cafeteria in one of the underground cities

Then we went for a hike in one of the famous valleys. We walked for about 3km down stream to where we would have lunch.

The restaurant at the end of our hike where we had lunch had this shelters where you could literally eat on top of the water

Then with no surprise we visited another place with more cave dwellings. This place was pretty nice because there were less tourists and more secluded.

After our tour we went to "Turkish Night" organized by one of the restaurants in Avanos. It consisted of traditional Turkish food and many shows, including a whirling dervish ceremony.
Turkish Night was the last activity of our Kapadokya Trip. We woke up the next morning at 8am to catch our 10hr bus ride back to Istanbul. This was by far my favorite trip in Turkish. It was an excellent mix of nature hikes, history, and Turkish culture. I could have definitely spent another 2-3 days further exploring the area.
When I was in Kapadokya my sister had also arrived to Istanbul. She is spending six weeks teaching English and working in a hospital. I was able to meet up with her a couple of times after I returned during the very little free time I had between work and my travel. Nonetheless, it was fun spending time with her and showing her around Turkey (as if I knew everything about Istanbul).

PS I have one more experience from Turkey (Antalya) to share with you before I begin to share my South Korean experiences so please bear with me. I'll hopefully make the antalya post a bit shorter than this one :)

1 comment:

  1. Nabeel,

    What an awesome post! I love the compilation of pictures and descriptions. You have such a positive energy when you write; it makes your posts an easy read (no matter the length!). Renting the scooter was a great idea. I'm glad that you settled on the guided tours. Riding around on your own would be liberating, but I think you got the most out of the experience by sticking with a group. Not getting lost is a plus! My comment would be entirely too long if I responded about all of the pictures, so I am just going to say that they are great! They tell the story all on their own. You mentioned that the waiters use a saber to break open the pot of food? Does this happen with all types of food? At every meal?

    The restaurant on top of the water is very unique. How cool! How awesome that you were able to meet up with your sister a world away. Her plans sound very exciting. That's wonderful that you are both able to experience these things and share a little bit together.

    I will definitely bear with you because I'd love to here about Antalya. Looking forward to it!

    Best,
    Tammy

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