Turkey !- Istanbul, Capadoccia and Pamukkale

 

After a long time we had a long vacation. This time we selected Turkey. We thought this would be a little different from our usual European tours. But it turned out to be mind blowing!

We visited the very historic city of Istanbul. A city full of beautiful monuments, more importantly all monuments very well taken care of. But the city is kept very dirty even around the historical and tourists sites. The People are usually polite but sometimes very rough (guess this is the way they talk, just sounds rough to us), extremely narrow streets with cats and dogs sharing the roads and alleys with cars and trucks with equal authority. The Bazaars remind us of India and yes you can bargain everywhere including in ticket prices !

The Sultanamhet Blue Mosque is beautiful, you can spend hours together appreciating the beauty of this construction. Then again there is the Hagiasofia Church/Mosque. Yes, confusing, but originally it was built as a Church, but after the Muslim invasion this was converted into a mosque. A beautiful church with beautiful paintings and roof mosaic has actual gold linings. But after it was converted into a mosque these very beautiful pictures were actually plastered so that no pictoral depictions are visible, as this is against islam. But later on this plaster peeled off and we can see the paintings, albeit some partially damaged. Later on the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk declared this monument as a secular place, a museum and no religious ceremonies are allowed. God bless his soul. You can actually see the painting of Jesus and Mary in the alter place and also a place where the Muslim priest gives the Azan(call for player) both side by side. Alas! If only this could have been true everywhere.
 
 Istanbul is special in one more aspect this city is spread across two continents. We crossed over from Aisa into Europe and Vise-versa many times !
 


 We also saw the Capadoccia (Kapadokia in Turkish). This place is very unique because of some volcanic /geological activity over thousands of years, the rock formations have taken the shape of long tall, building with a hat like structure on the top. These were used as houses by people and small chimneys drilled into them. The French gave them the name of Fairy Chimneys! And now I can say they were not wrong. They really look beautiful. Just like our Sadhus in India, many Christian monks lived here. They Led a secluded life away from population and studying only religion. Since this place is difficult to reach and at a height it also gave them protection from the enemies (non-christians and Arabs). Infact one of such places was a place of study for more than 1000 people from all over many places. they could not understand each others language so they studied Christianity using paintings all over the caves. These paintings can still be seen in the many caves and mountains here. Lovely place, both historically as well as for natural beauty.
 


 Another place we visited was Pamukkale. Telugu people would surely know this place. No, Telugus
are not genetically related to Turks, but the lifeblood of Telugu's - Telugu Cinemas have been shot here. “BEAUTIFUL”, in every sense of the word. God! I cannot put the beauty of this place in words. Natural Hot springs on top of hills, the water flowing down creates sediments of calcium, resulted in huge white coloured hills, the water has other minerals like Iron and Copper, which give streaks of Red and Orange on some sides, the hills are in shapes of Tables-over-tables and each table holds knee deep water and depending upon the time of the day and sunshine the water looks different colour. It has to be seen to be believed. Not to forget, there are ruins of an old city where the christians had wiped off the early Pagan religion. Amongst the ruins there is a swimming pool which Cleopatra had used. Even today you can swim in this pool, of course by paying for the ticket. The kids enjoyed this place so much that we had to actually drag Shashank, Sneha and Shardul(our friends son) back to Istanbul.

One thing which I would like to mention is, these places are very far away from Istanbul and except for the tourist places there is nothing much. Naturally the youth of these places would migrate to bigger cities in search of opportunities. Because of this the local cultural and traditional arts were dying. Especially the local distinct traditional Carpet making and Terracotta pottery. So the Government of Turkey came out with a beautiful idea. It created a cooperative unit for carpet making employing local youth and also women and gave them special privileges. Now the youth do not have to go to Istanbul leaving their native place and also earn good money right at home. The Local traditional art is saved. As for the native traditional type of pottery which dates back 100's of years, only few families remain which knew this art. Now the Government has encouraged these families to continue this art, help them open workshops in their own houses and these places are used as practical educative areas for native art forms, earning good money to the families apart from the money they make from the beautiful pottery. Mind you this pottery is not cheap. This is very expensive and with government help this has become very popular. Just think about it, these two places were not on our itenary, but the tour guide took us there anyway. A small detour, does not cost the tour guide anything but helps in encouraging the dying arts and gives huge publicity. I would not know this or share it with you if he had not taken us there.

I did not expect the tour of Turkey would be so exciting. But we all loved this tour, of course for different reasons.