The Fabulous Life of Ponteuf

Turkish Clean (she says, he says)

She Says:
Besides the ruins and the mosques, one oft touted highlight of Turkey is the Hamam, or Turkish Bath. In the days before good plumbing, bathing needs (cleanliness strictly prescribed by Islam) outpaced in-home facilities, so the hamams were built in every town, often more than one, to give people a place to get squeaky clean. Though personal showers have certainly become commonplace, there are still a large number of baths in Istanbul, and before we left town last Sunday, I made sure we tried one.

The receptionist at our hotel suggested the Camerlitas bath, near the Grand Bazaar. For tourists, she said, but still nice. We’d soaked in the hot springs in Pamukkale, and had showered every day, but Istanbul was humid and I felt perpetually sticky. Bathing (or being bathed) seemed like a really good idea.

He Says:
I was a little leery about the whole let a small swarthy man wash your every crevice.  I’d heard the stories of Turkish prison and wasn’t exactly ready to give myself over completely.  From the menu I picked the self service wash – I was into that – and besides, the main reason I was going was to indulge in a deep long sweat.  Plus I didn’t figure a lot of guys in there would go in for the get soaped up by another guy thing.  My self-service included soap, shampoo and all the necessary accoutrements for the ritual.  Up the stairs I went to the changing rooms, small cubicles with doors and a bench to relax on post-bath.  Off with the clothes and on with the traditional wrap and rubber shower shoes.  Changed and ready, I was pointed back down the stairs and into the antechamber of the men’s bath.  On the way in, one of the men working there asked if I had purchased a massage, I said no, and he sent me in. 

She Says:
We chose our bathing style from a “set menu” – I went for the “have someone wash you” but no serious massage option, and added a clay face mask for good measure. My skin just wasn’t sure about the transition from dry Africa to moist Turkey, and for 10 lira, I figured why not. I was given a yellow plastic tile to exchange for the wash, a black one for the mask and a rough natural sponge wash mitt in a box. Mike went upstairs to the left, I just crossed the lobby to the right and was in a gym locker room, long and narrow. The attendant gave me a key to wear on my wrist and a towel to wrap around myself, and told me I could take “everything” off, so I did. When I walked through the locker room into another, larger one and then into a simple, stone floored cool room, filled with women resting on benches around the perimeter, I realized that “everything” did not include underwear, so I went back and put mine back on. Not quite sure what to do, I hung around waiting for someone to DO something, clutching my two tiles. For tourists or not, I was clearly the only woman in there that didn’t speak Turkish and I felt both conspicuous and uninformed. Finally a woman about my age took pity on my obvious confusion and told me to just “go right in” and lie down, someone would come and wash me. I thanked her and beelined for the heavy wooden door in the center of the room.

He Says:
Immediately upon entering the bath, my glasses, which I should have left behind, steamed up.  I pushed them up onto my head and took a quick look around: showers to the left, towels to the right, and a large wooden door to the main bath in front of me.  It was like a choose your own adventure – I saw a guy go up to one of the faucet/marble sink combos built into the wall on the left side of the door and soak himself.  Taking this as a sign of what to do, I went and did the same.  No sooner did I dunk the water over my head than 2 guys came up to me admonishing me to go into the main door.  I felt as if I’d double-dipped my chip at a cocktail party – 2 minutes in and a major faux pas committed.  Now, directed to the right course, I swung the heavy wooden door open and walked into the main chamber.

She Says:
Once inside the main area, I really didn’t mind not knowing what to do – it was peaceful. The center of the room was filled with a large, solid raised marble platform, almost chair height and more or less circular. Alcoves of varying depths led off the sides of the room, each with a marble basin and water spigot and more benches. Every third alcove was deep, with three basins, the ones in-between were shallower. Instead of a low, dark roof, the entire space was capped with a lofty dome, pierced by star shaped cutouts that let in light in long, filtered shafts. The room was pleasantly warm and steamy, and the prevailing sound was of drops of water hitting the floor and echoing every so slightly. There were a scattering of other women, some resting, some washing each others hair and a few getting lathered up. I spread my towel on the center stone, laid down and waited.

He Says:
The center of the main chamber contained a large marble hexagon, about 20 feet across the middle.  It was warmer in there, much warmer.  Here, I could follow examples.  There were a bunch of men laying on the central pedestal sweating it out.  Around the center there were four smaller open chambers with faucets and benches.  In between the chambers were more faucets spilling coldish water out continuously.  The place was more or less silent, punctuated by the drip of water from the taps.  The male baths were a place of retreat.  There was one guy getting either massaged or punished by one of the attendants.  Although, there are no nametags and the attendants wear the same sheet the bathers wear, so it could have been that the massaged had lost a bet.  Nowhere did I see guys being soaped up, so I was glad that I took a pass on the massage and full-service wash.  Me, I was there for the sweat.  Sure, you can go out on the street and sweat, but here it’s therapeutic.  I lay myself down on the hexagon and let the sweat just pour out.  It’s not until you stop moving that it really happens; all the pores open and it runs out of you.  You can’t scrub a pore open.  But you can steam the little buggers out.  I’d lie down on the block for about ten minutes and let it happen.  Then, I’d get up and go over to the tepid faucets and dumped a bucket of it over my head.  I didn’t need to see an example to know that this was the thing to do.  With my body chilled down slightly, I headed back to the block for more sweat.  This process was repeated several times before I was ready to move on.

She Says:
The stone was warm, the room was warm… and I was becoming putty by the time a bath attendant motioned for me to come to her for bathing. The attendants, like everyone else, wore underwear but no bra – it was hard to tell who worked there, at least based on “uniform.” The woman who washed me was short and heavyset and had extremely large breasts that bumped into me occasionally – I realized that this would *never* fly at home! She spoke very little English, so she moved me by the shoulders when she wanted me to change position or turn. I started face down on the stone and she scrubbed me with the mitt, then I was turned over and she scrubbed my front. At any spa I’ve been to, breasts and any areas covered by underwear are considered taboo and great care is taken to stay far away. Here, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that everything needs to be cleaned, and vigorously!

After the rub down she sat me up and covered me in soap suds – it was like sitting in a bubble bath without sitting in water. She scrubbed me all over again, then took me into one of the alcoves, sat me below the basin and washed my hair. Once she was satisfied with my general level of cleanliness, she poured water over me repeatedly until the soap was just a memory. Ok, she said, and slapped my butt. Come. I followed her into the cool room, was wrapped in a clean, dry towel and seated on a bench.

He Says:
Having sweated my body down to about 10% water, I wandered out of the main room back into the antechamber of much confusion.  This time, I knew what I needed and headed for the showers.  They were an interesting mix of new and old – large bathroom style partitions and fixtures set above a sloped marble floor that ran the water down to a central channel and away.  I moseyed into my stall, removed my damp wrap and soaped myself up and down in alternating hot and cold water.  I saw a disposable razor sitting in a tray and thought that a shave now would be heavenly.  Not knowing the origins of the razor, I declined its use, but had I brought my own, it would have been a great shave!  As I got to the end of the shower, I gradually reduced the temperature to cold in the attempt to close up the pores.  I re-wrapped and returned to the antechamber for further directions.  I was told to swap my wet wrap for a dry one and head back up to the changing rooms.

In the changing rooms, I lay down and switched off the lights and let my body dry naturally.  This was perhaps the best part of the experience.  A quiet room, an inner warmth and some silent time.  I was there for about 20 minutes before I realized I had to move on.  I dressed, returned the key to the room’s lock and headed back down to the lobby to meet up with Aimee.  “Refreshed” doesn’t begin to describe how I felt.  The baths are certainly a place to get clean, but for me the experience is more about relaxation than cleanliness.  You can clean up anywhere, but it takes a bit more than soap to refresh and rejuvenate.  Initially, going into a hamam is an exercise in confusion, but the end result is undeniable.

She Says:
After the bath, the clay mask wasn’t as exciting. A woman came and sat next to me with a little pot of clay and a brush and painted my face, then left me to dry. When I couldn’t move my face, she led me to a tall basin and washed the mask off for me, then gave me a face and neck massage with orange oil. So much for the drying properties of the mask, I supposed, but it felt good and I smelled nice. Refreshed and cleaner than I had been in weeks, I redressed and met Mike in the lobby. “You look clean” he said – and I certainly felt it.

Once I got over my initial discomfort (not of being touched, but of not knowing what to do) I had completely enjoyed my bath. Being washed made me feel like a small child and it was both physically pleasant and very comforting. Having water poured over me in great buckets made me feel like every speck of dirt and grime in my pores was washed away… I don’t know that I’ve ever been this clean. The interaction was interesting too – regardless of this being a “tourist” bath (I suppose because it was central and beautiful inside) most of the women were obviously locals and regulars. The minute they turned the corner into the locker area, headscarves came off and joking and talking began. I had read that the hamam was a social event as much as a cleansing one, and that’s obviously still true. It was the first glimpse I had of the female world of Turkey – and I thought it was a lot nicer than sitting in a café playing dice!

Feeling a Bit Like Edmund

My first Turkish Delight experience was also my first trip abroad – and I didn’t really like it. Oh, the “abroad” part I loved, but the candy? I wanted to like it, badly. If Edmund had sold himself for Turkish Delight, I figured it had to be good, and the problem likely rested with me. I never thought to blame my dislike on inferior product, but really, I don’t know what I expected from a fuchsia foil wrapped package from a gas station. That Turkish Delight was all packaging and no substance – I think it was nothing more than rose water flavored jelly dipped in chocolate. Still, I ate it, and I said that I liked it, and I made lots of noise about it, convincing myself that it really was good. Secretly though, I was disappointed.

I continued to eat Turkish Delight on subsequent trips to London, but it wasn’t until a jaunt to Harrods while I was at Oxford that I found something better. Not chocolate dipped and certainly not wrapped in foil, the Turkish Delight from the Harrods Food halls was pale in color, made paler still by a coating of powdered sugar. Like so many large large dice, the candy was softer, more like soft taffy or gummi and much less like hardened jelly and the flavors were delicate (and weren’t limited to rose water, which, by then, I had determined I just didn’t like). For this, I could understand a bit more of Edmund’s betrayal. I chalked my early issues with the stuff up to cheapness, became a Turkish Delight snob and insisted that the White Witch must have shopped at Harrods.

In Istanbul, I’ve finally found the Holy Grail of Turkish Delight. Wandering through the streets the other day, Mike stopped me in front of a shop that had only one word on the storefront – Lokum. Of course! Turkish Delight was invented here, during Ottoman rule, and is actually Lokum (rahat lokum or “comfortable morsel” was its original name). We walked inside and I was amazed … a whole bakery case, filled to the brim with more kinds of Turkish Delight than I’d ever even imagined. Not limited to solid color squares here – I also saw striped pieces, round pieces, Neapolitan colored rectangles. The man behind the counter spoke no English, and with the exception of merhaba (hello), iki (two), lutfen (please) and tesekkur ederim (thank you) we are useless at Turkish… but pointing, smiling and lots of “iki” got us a beautiful half kilo box. He wrapped it up nicely in paper and we left clutching our 4 lira treat.

We opened it in our hotel that night, and have been feasting on it every night before bed since. The flavors are different – some citrus, some nut, some spice, and I even like the rosewater. The texture is soft but still firm enough to chew, and nowhere near tough. I’m reminded more of homemade marshmallows than anything, but even that isn’t quite right. The only problem with this Turkish Delight is that I won’t be able to get it anywhere else – it, like gelato from Castellina, is going to become the holy grail. So if the White Witch happens to approach me, offering a lifetime supply in exchange for any of your whereabouts, well… I’m sorry in advance.

MS: Döner Kebab: or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ramazan

It’s a new experience to be in a Muslim country.  The days are punctuated with calls to prayer from the minarets surrounding the numerous Mosques.  In our current political climate, this very foreign sound can be somewhat frightening.  Perhaps you recall the movie Black Hawk Down where soldiers roam the empty streets of Somalia trying to escape back to safety with the Muezzin’s call as an eerie background soundtrack.  Maybe you fear that all Muslims are out to get anyone from America.  Either way, it can be a setup for a very wrong impression.

Mosques in Turkey are just as prevalent as churches in America.  The only difference is they are easier to spot.  Typically they are the only buildings in town that are not composed totally of right angles.  The minarets, often the tallest structures in town, are hard to miss as well.  And here we are during Ramazan where the faithful fast from 5AM to 7PM. 

We were both a bit nervous about traveling to Islamic countries during Ramadan.  For some reason we didn’t grok that Turkey was in this group.  Once we got here, it sort of hit us over the head.  So this is Ramadan . . . .

When you see all of these Mosques it’s hard not to be overwhelmed as there are many and they really do standout.  But then you have to realize that most are active places of worship and Islam is a people’s religion, where everyone from the street sweeper to the tour guide to the businessman goes to pray.  Too often in America, Islam is seen hand in hand with terrorism.  It’s an unfair generalization.  It’s like assuming all Christians are like the Branch Davidians in Waco.  Still there was an air of uneasiness for me when we arrived in Istanbul.

We stayed in the country first and took most of our meals at the hotels and seemed to be more separated from the day to day lives of the Turks around us.  Once we arrived in Istanbul, pedestrians again, we were thrust into it.  Our first adventure in Istanbul was finding something to eat – it was 6:30 and our receptionist warned us that it may be hard to find a place to eat around 7 as that was when the fasting ended.  We set off towards the Blue Mosque – assuming there’d be food near this tourist attraction.  Rain was coming down hard and we were glad for our borrowed umbrellas as we ascended towards the Mosque.  We passed by several local restaurants packed to the gills with men, and only men.  The women were not out in the neighborhood we were staying in.  Soon we made it to an area with brighter lights and signs, the Mosque was close – there were tourist shops aplenty.

We rounded a corner and found ourselves in the hippodrome, a former chariot racing stadium that has become a large oval shaped road with a park in the center.  Surrounding the park were food stands, and even in the pouring rain, an impressive amount of people.  We walked up to one of the succulent cones of lamb rotating on a charcoal fired vertical spit and began salivating with an intensity that was soon noticed by one of the men working there.  He bid us to follow him to the covered space behind the front of the stall and we sat down to an amazing meal.  We both ordered the same thing, a plate of Döner Kebab, a Cola Turka and a stack of flat bread.  Out came a plate of rice pilaf covered with fresh shavings of lamb from the spit (with plenty of crispy bits) and a small pile of lettuce and chopped tomatoes.  We quickly made burritos with the flatbread and doused our dinner with the mild chili flakes that were on the table.  Next to the chili was a large squeeze bottle of lemon juice.  Adding this to the burrito made a good thing even better.  We were soon chewing happily. 

The Turks are generally credited with exporting Kebab to the rest of the world and they definitely do it right.  Here the Kebab spits are rotated by hand so that each layer is crisp and tender.  The meat is pleasantly fattier than what you see elsewhere.  This extra bit of fat, usually seen as a white cap on top of the cone adds so much flavor.  They offer the Kebab as a plate, a sandwich on a french roll, in a sourdough round, or in flatbread.  Some places top it with a salad, others with lettuce, some with tomato and one even included a handful of French Fries on top.  All were delicious.  Other treats at the Hippodrome Ramazan fair included copious glass cups of fresh Turkish tea and Turkish Coffee brewed over a charcoal fire.  They had popcorn and cotton candy as well as fresh squeezed pomegranate and orange juice.  There were trays of impossibly good baklava on offer and a unique confection.  This confection started with an empty lollipop stick that was dipped into this soft goo and swirled around in each of five flavors to coat the stick.  You eventually ended up with a unicorn-horn like lollipop only the candy was still liquid and not hard.  A bit sugary for my taste, but Aimee loved it.

We looked around and checked out our surroundings.  The long line of Kebab stands shared the same tarp-covered back area and they were full of happy Muslims enjoying their first meal in 14 hours.  There were couples on dates, groups of businessmen, laborers, families and more.  Everyone turns out for the food and settles into a convivial atmosphere centered around it.  Suddenly I felt much better about this whole Ramazan thing.  These were people brought together by delicious simple food.  As people started cheering a soccer game on TV, their blood sugar back at normal levels, I realized that there really wasn’t that much setting Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists apart.  In the end, all we really crave is a good meal in the company of people we care about.  And those crispy bits?  They don’t hurt either!

Country Mouse, City Mouse

I think we’ve come at Turkey a little backward. Rather than following the normal tourist route of Istanbul first, small towns second, we bypassed Istanbul twice before we ever got here – once on the way to Selcuk and then again on the way to Cappadocia. We rented a car for the first three days, a move that Lonely Planet and other guidebooks note as “not for the faint of heart.” Since Mike did the actual driving and all I had to worry about was finding directional road signs (not the easiest task, I was to discover: we made our flight from Izmir back to Istanbul by the skin of our teeth) I shouldn’t comment, but I really didn’t think it was as bad as predicted. Turkish drivers do seem to have a lack of respect for lanes, but once that was established, I think we did pretty well. The roads were largely empty – we’re blaming the price of gas (about $6.84 a gallon!) but that might have worked in our favor.

The landscape around Selcuk and Ephesus is, as I’ve already said once, “classic Mediterranean” and it captivated me. It matched my mental image of the setting for Herodotus’ histories, and if, narrowly, I had imagined all biblical history had taken place in sand dunes and tents with a few scraggly palm trees, I was prepared to re-envision the major players here. The drive from the coast inland to Pamukkale was a shock, because it looked like Ventura County. I’m not trying to find home everywhere we go, but this was unavoidable. Flat fertile fields bordered by putty shaped hills, strawberry fields and orange trees, little roadside stands selling fruit – even the weeds by the side of the road are familiar. Mike too thought that we could be driving the 126 between Valencia and Santa Paula. Just to keep things from being too comfortable, though, we had Cappadocia, which could have been the moon, or another planet.

Turkey seems to grow everything. We’ve had consistently good tomatoes here, some excellent peaches, fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and possibly the best green figs I’ve ever eaten. We stopped in faux-Fillmore at a roadside stand and bought a bag, then secretly ate them in the car, keeping our hands down while we drove through towns and feeling guilty – it is Ramazan, after all. As non-Muslim tourists, we’re not expected to fast, but we both feel conspicuous and a bit uncomfortable eating during the day – roadside stands and kebab joints, while open for business, are ghost towns. Even in the more touristy areas, no one seems to be eating, so we’re following what I call “Ramazan-lite.”

Every morning? night? at about 3am, we’re awakened by a drum. A loud drum, played with no rhythm but great enthusiasm, generally right outside our window. Sometimes the drum passes once, other times it doubles back for a second go, an overeager marching band of one. Wakeup call for the faithful Muslims, who must eat before 5am, it serves as a marker in our nights, a half awake moment that I can use to retrieve some covers before I fall back asleep. All our hotels have had breakfast included, so we’ve made a point to fill up then – no use feeling guilty when you’re not the only one eating – as we’re never sure when food will come again. Most days we’ve managed to sneak in a kebab here and there, but we’re always relieved when the muezzin call at 7pm signals the end of the fast.

Until Istanbul, our hotels have offered a full meal and we’ve been happy to eat there. The food has been good: home cooking style, usually a soup, mezze and a main, reasonably priced and generously proportioned. Having eaten so well for so little in the country, we’ve spent our time in Istanbul eating “stand food” from the Ramazan fair set up along the Hippodrome next to the Blue Mosque. The whole thing seems to be a food fair catering to the very hungry – at five minutes to seven this evening the square was packed with people, most with food in their hands but untouched, waiting for the muezzin’s ok. The past two nights have had rain in varying amounts but tonight was clear, and I don’t know if it was that or Saturday night, but the place was so packed that we had a hard time doing our nightly chariot race around the Hippodrome, looking in stalls and trying to pick the best doner, baklava, fruit juice or coffee.

The architecture in Istanbul is impressive. Though there aren’t too many left, the old Ottoman style wooden houses are evocative, and I see roots of the Jugenstil movement in much of the decorative touches at the Topkapi Palace. The Palace is practically its own city, and the series of pavilions, courtyards and gardens appeals to me much more than the European palace fortress. Even the harem looks like it would have been a nice place to live – clearly, it was good to be Sultan, and the sheer number of tiles in any of the buildings is staggering.

Similarly, it’s really hard to walk in the Aya Sofya and not be blown away. Built in 537AD and completed in less than 6 years, it has a dome that wouldn’t be exceeded until St. Peter’s was completed some 1000 years later. Say what you will about the Romans – they knew how to build. The inside was once covered in mosaics, but when Constantinople fell in 1493 and the church became a mosque the mosaics were plastered over. A few have been uncovered and restored – they glow with a warm golden light that is arresting – it must have been absolutely awe inspiring when every surface was covered.

The Blue Mosque is the Aya Sofya’s closest neighbor, and if Sultanahmet had block contests, I’m afraid it might lose. The interior is covered, floor to ceiling, in blue and green Iznic tiles, all with the fine floral and geometric designs you would expect in an iconoclastic mosque. The iron work chandeliers hang low over the carpet covered floor and the dome is partially obscured by the hundreds of support cables for the chandeliers. It is beautiful, and I particularly liked the tile, but the dome, while smaller than the Aya Sofya’s, is supported by four huge pillars that break up the main space … and it was built more than 1000 years later. Clever hollow bricks and better engineering make the Aya Sofya’s dome float seemingly unsupported, and the Blue Mosque just can’t compete. The sheer number of mosques in Istanbul, though, is impressive. As we walked through the city, it seemed like there was one on every corner, and they all  looked like the Blue Mosque – gold topped minarets, piles of grey blue rounded shapes balanced atop one another, crowed by a dome. As a whole, they overwhelm the skyline and give it an exotic appearance.

Exotic is not how I would describe the Aegean towns. In fact, every rural town we drove through or visited in Turkey seemed to share two characteristics: the buildings were uniformly of ugly cinder block and there were no women in evidence. While both are, I think, easily explainable (just enough prosperity to build, but not enough to build nicely and traditional Islam, respectively) I found them both unsettling. I don’t want to deny people comfortable housing so that when I visit I can see charming tumbledown hamlets, but I do wish that, like so many things, man could find a way to build affordably but attractively. Why, I asked Mike after two hours of driving had revealed nothing but cinderblock squares with metal railings, does cheap have to be ugly?

The lack of women is another story entirely. Turkey has revealed itself to be much more Muslim than I was expecting from a country whose politics are fiercely secular. Until we reached Istanbul, I think I could count on my fingers the number of women I saw outside of hotels and tourist establishments. All the cafes in town were packed with men, talking and playing dice; the empty lots were filled with little boys. At first I thought it was my oversight, that there really were women there, so I started looking more closely – but it didn’t change what I saw. Turning a rural corner in Cappadocia we came upon a man driving a flock of sheep across the road - not the most common sight - but I think that by that point I would have been more surprised by a group of women going shopping. The few women I did see were working in the fields or hanging laundry out to dry – they certainly weren’t in the public space. I was only seeing them because their private sphere at that point happened to be out my window. They weren’t interacting in the public life of the towns at all, and I couldn’t have told you the color of any of their hair.

The women in Istanbul are more evident, certainly, and there are many of them who do not cover their heads or wear a long shift – but I’ve also seen enough women swathed completely in black and showing only their eyes that even they are not a rara avis. I’m having a hard time reconciling that sight with what I know of Aylin and her family – I just can’t put her exuberant personality and belly dancing lessons in the same country as the woman in front of me at Topkapi Palace today who was draped from head to toe. I feel like there is another Turkey here that I just haven’t visited – how else to explain the difference? It is a strange sensation, to walk past a café and see not one woman inside, or to stand in a line and realize that my head is the only one uncovered.

We walked from the Grand Bazaar to the Spice Market yesterday, and our lack of a good map coupled with the lack of street signs resulted in a very round about route that led though busy streets of houses, apartments, businesses and vegetable carts – and only two women. Heads covered, they sat on a house step far back from the road, watching two children play. The little boy was in the empty lot across the street, teasing a few of Istanbul’s thousands of cats. The little girl was sitting right at their feet. Men and women seem to live in different worlds here, and if that scene was any indication, the separation starts early.

MS: Why not Live in a Cave?

There are many reasons to come to Cappadocia (pronounced Cap-A-Dokie-A) in Central Turkey.  Actually, there’s really only one reason to come here: Geology.  You see, the collection of villages that make up this region are built on foundations of tufa.  Tufa is a stone made from volcanic origins that is not only very strong, it is also very easy to shape.  It bears weight well, but at the same time could be shaped, whittled and hollowed out with an emery board.  As such, the area is littered with caves dug out anywhere from the late BCs to the 1100s or so.  In fact, people were living in caves here as late as 1952.  The result of this is that the landscape looks like Monument Valley (where almost every classic Western was shot) had it been transported to the planet Mongo.  Imagine narrow spindles of rock supporting boulders.  Think of Indian (feather, not dot) cliff dwellings.  Now plant some olive trees and place this mess in a hilly landscape and you’ve got a rough idea of Cappadocia. 

But why live in caves?  The caves were dug out to protect the inhabitants from religious persecution of one kind or another.  First it was the Christians hiding from the Romans, Hittites, Muslims, assorted Arabs and (likely) tax collectors.  Being good Christians, they dug out impressive churches with elaborate paintings.  Numerous saints held court in these small enclaves.  Eventually, the Christians moved on, leaving their caves, art and churches behind.  No sooner were they gone than the Muslims moved in to escape their persecutors.  Islam shuns the depiction of people in art, so the faces within the Christian church art were scratched out or covered with plaster.  With Turkey holding one foot in Asia and a big toe in Europe, it’s no wonder that people have been going back and forth over religion for centuries.

Fancy staying in a cave?  The region has countless hotels, motels, pensions and other establishments that will cater to your needs.  The good ones are small – after all, there’s only so much rock to carve a room out from.  Just because it’s a cave doesn’t mean its uncomfortable.  Our cave room is nicely carved out with crown molding chiseled from the rock, electricity and a fully functioning bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub.  The persecuted souls who hid out here millennia ago never had it so good.   

Cappadocia isn’t exactly on the beaten path.  To get here, you’ve got to hop a plane from Istanbul to Kayseri.  Once you hit Kayseri, you have another 65km to travel before you will hit cave country.  You could rent a car, but the rates for doing so are astronomical, even for Turkey.  The better hotels will cover your bus fare into town if you’ve made a reservation in advance.  Once you make it to your room, you’ll need to make arrangements for seeing the sites.  The main things to see are in a 30km circle, so you’ll need to either join a larger group or get a driver.  We opted for the driver and had a full day tour of the region.  We started with a visit to the pink valley to see the rock formations formed by years of rain and weather eating away at the soft tufa, leaving large rocks supported by narrow spindles.  From there we went to Zelve’s open-air museum which house the region’s first dug caves.  There in the face of the hills are cooking chambers, churches and houses cut into the rock with primitive tools over 2000 years ago.  Being Turkey, and not America, you can walk right up to them, touch what you like, have a pee in the corner (sadly) of an ancient dwelling, jump to your death or otherwise injure yourself all the while experiencing this bit of history without a velvet rope in front of it.  There are some tangible benefits of a country with lax personal injury lawyers. 

After seeing the cave village at Zelve, we drove up the road a bit and saw the fairy chimneys—unusual rock formations set among vineyards of bush vine grapes.  Cappadocia is also a viticultural center for Turkey and the product is easily quaffable.  We had a nice lunch in nearby Avanos on a rooftop terrace away from the hungry eyes of the locals fasting for Ramazan (Ramadan in Turkish) and were back on our way.  In the afternoon we visited the open air museum at Goreme which was a much more substantial complex than Zelve (having been built several hundred years later).  This Unesco World Heritage site features more complex cave architecture and a church every ten feet.  We’re talking frescoes, apses, cruciform design, catacombs, the works—all in about a 15x15 square.  It was impressive to say the least.  Well, at least until our last stop of the day, the underground city of Kaymakli.

Kaymakli was built in the third century AD.  It is an underground complex of chambers that reaches about 100 feet into the Earth on 8 floors.  It housed approximately 5000 people.  Underground.  Basically we’re talking an underground city.  Again, the persecuted needed safety and digging into the Earth was the way they found it.  This network of caves had a central chimney that brought in water and air.  Around the center were a complex of caves that house families, livestock and the food, water and wine to support them for up to 6 months.  Should an attacking army show up, the cave inhabitants would roll enormous boulders into the entrances blocking the advance of their enemies.  The chimneys were camouflaged and the cave network so complex that small attacking forces could be let in, would promptly get lost and killed without incident.  The caves housed churches, wineries, and mass storage.  Should the siege go terribly long, the inhabitants had a connecting tunnel to the next underground village 8km away.  If all else failed, there were approximately 100 exits from the complex-one sure to be unguarded. 

If the rest of the day has been an appetizer, Kaymakli was definitely the main course.
And speaking of main courses, we ended our day’s adventures by returning to our cave room content that our biggest challenge remaining was the trek to the rooftop terrace where dinner was being served.   

Turkey is for Shopping

If you’ve ever taken a guided tour, you know about the obligatory shopping stops. Fresh from some cultural monument, your heart sinks as the car/van/bus wheels into the parking lot for what can only be described as a tourist trap of epic proportions and no escape. In the Caribbean the stores tend to batik and jewelry, in Asia you could be looking at anything from silk to wood carving to palm sugar and salt. I don’t have personal experience in Europe, but I’ve seen tour buses disgorging hundreds of fanny-packed shoppers into cheese stores in Switzerland, leather stores in Italy and worst of all, cuckoo clock stores in Germany.

I used to think this only happened to the big bus groups, but a few days of hiring drivers here and there has proven that smaller is no defense. We’ve been carted around Cappadocia all day today, and we met a similar fate. Perhaps you didn’t know that this area of Turkey is known for both ceramics and onyx? Well, now you do.

I do have to make a disclosure: I kind of like the shopping stops. I don’t want too many, and I don’t want to have to buy anything, but they can be interesting and I have to be impressed at the ingenuity of them. With so many tourists coming through, oozing money, good for the locals for finding a way to make some. Besides, there is something that amuses me about the ritual of it, and I like watching what the other tourists are buying. Mike disagrees, of course, and any shopping sends his eyes rolling to the back of his head while his attitude devolves to that of a sulky teenager looking for a way to make trouble.

Maybe we’ve been lucky, but the experience in Turkey has been pleasant. I think there’s something to be said for relaxing and it enjoying it for what it is, but they make that easy here. Our first shop-stop today was at a ceramics workshop. Down into the cave we went (I think most everything in Cappadocia is cave-related) and watched as the master potter formed a plate effortlessly. We saw the kiln, saw pieces drying … and then were shown into a small room with cushioned benches for a demonstration of the kick wheel. Apple tea was served and I was invited to give the clay a try. The potter helped me get the wheel started and gave the clay its first shape, then I was allowed to play. I made the hole in the middle and, with help, widened the shape into a bowl. The feeling of the clay was firmer than I expected, and somehow alive, like it had a shape it wanted to move into. I loved it – my suspicion that I would enjoy pottery classes was correct.

Of course we ended up in the showroom, but this was no hard sell, and the pieces were legitimately beautiful. Had I more space and significantly more money, I would have bought a ceremonial wine pitcher in the Hittite style – imagine a round hollow circle with a base for standing, an arm for holding and a spout – with the circle so large that it could be worn over the shoulder and poured from there. Dark reds and clay colors and tiny hand painted designs made it intricate and very different from anything I’d ever seen.

We also ended up in the showroom, with the requisite apple tea, at the Onyx factory later in the day, but the sell there was similarly light. Our guide, who had explained the entire process of the onyx carving, showed us the different grades (coming from different depths) and had the carver whip out an onyx egg on a pedestal for me, actually thanked us for listening. We all knew the idea was for us to buy something (jewelry or onyx, he didn’t much care) but he was remarkably low key about it, just as the ceramics seller had been.

Believe it or not, the easiest experience was with a carpet salesman, much to our shock. Arriving at Ephesus early in the morning a few days ago, we were approached by a man who offered us a free shuttle to the top of the site in exchange for visiting his “school” afterward. Thinking we could just make a donation instead, we accepted… when we finished, someone was there to lead us to the school and it was clear that the donation idea wasn’t flying. A short distance down the road we turned into a parking lot draped with carpets, and I think we both thought that we were in trouble.

A friendly guy met us at the door and showed us the weaving techniques and explained the different types of carpets, materials, knots and dyes. I didn’t know that carpets could be wool and cotton blends, all wool or all silk, or that silk could only be knotted onto silk warp and weft because it would tear anything else. Watching the woman knot, press and then cut the carpet was impressive, and I had a greater appreciation for why they are so expensive after seeing the work that went into them. Prices are less by size than by the amount of work, so a small, detailed silk carpet (the hereke are the most expensive) is much more pricy than a large, simple cotton and wool number.

Walked into a back room, we were offered tea and carpets were unfurled all over the floor in front of us – samples of all the different types. Patterns were explained (I’m pretty sure most of them had to do with fertility) and the fringe even had a story: fringe tied into bundles indicates the carpet is made by an unmarried girl looking for a husband. The carpets are draped out the windows of a house… advertising.

Again, here, the sell was soft. When we said that we were traveling for months more and weren’t interested, he shook our hands and walked us to the door – no pressure, no hassle, no guilt.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a kilim on its way to California as I type. I never said I couldn’t be tempted.

Ionic, Doric & Corinthian – but Corinthian, mostly

The switch from animals to ruins is overwhelming. Last week my biggest concern, photographically, was how to hold the long lens steady in a bouncing land rover and still get a clear shot of the twiga by the side of the road. This morning I did battle with hundreds of unsteady cruise ship tourists as they (and I) jostled for position along the ancient streets of Ephesus. These are different skills, Mabel, and I’m behind.

After a full two days of travel, we are (I think to our surprise) in Turkey. Very far, indeed, from the wilds of Tanzania, and I’m still having a hard time getting used to the amount of people we see, the paved roads and the lack of animals browsing in the bushes. Mike’s having a hard time adjusting to the side of the road he’s expected to drive on, and as previously mentioned, Ponteuf is still bitter about having been unceremoniously bagged for most of the safari. All in all, I’m not sure we’re the most stable group at the moment. Add in that yesterday was the first day of Ramadan, totally eliminating our three daily safari feedings and you’ve got an out of sorts trio.

But still. Turkey is beautiful. I think I’d describe it as Mediterranean, at least in the pine tree, sun burned hill and rocky ground way that I’ve always pictured ancient Greece. That shouldn’t be far from the truth then, because by the looks of it, there are more Greek (and Roman) ruins here than in either Greece or Italy. Turkey is an interesting country, historically – forever a crossroads, it has dabbled in just about every significant culture … and a few more for good measure. Our hotel room last night had a view of the castle where St. John is buried. He preached in the amphitheatre at Ephesus, at a time with Ephesus was already an old city. When I stop to consider just how old that makes Ephesus, my brain seizes up a little.

Walking through the site (it is more than just ruins, but not quite a city), I really can’t decide if I am more amazed by the fact that so many columns and arches and facades are still standing, given their staggering age or by the obvious skill and attention to detail and beauty that man had all those years ago. Driving though the countryside this afternoon, through towns filled with concrete block apartments and dreary, serviceable buildings, I wonder what has happened to us? Where are our beautiful cities?

Ephesus still has streets paved with marble. The communal toilet has a floor of mosaics, and the public spaces of the city are ringed with fountains and statuary. The long streets lined with columns, the terraced houses climbing up the hill, the library – even in pieces, these elements create a far more beautiful city than any we’re building today. Mike pointed out, rightly, that with slave labor, anything is possible, but I think that is too easy an answer. The ancient Greeks and Romans placed a priority on the appearance and geometry of their buildings that we don’t. Triumphal arches and beautiful columns, even in a bathroom, were considered important. Today’s flat screen TV, perhaps? Just a status symbol? If so, at least it was one that contributed to the city as a whole.

We started our exploration at the top of the city and walked downhill. The tour groups were already pouring in, but getting an 8am start meant that we were able to find pockets of emptiness among the Corinthian columns, places where we could reconstruct in our heads the greatness of what we were seeing. Later in the afternoon we wandered through Hierapolis, a Roman city built near the travertine pools in Pamukkale. There are a few more intact arches and buildings here than in Ephesus, and the massive scale of them shocked me. Huge arches, thick walls, blocks the size of small cars. That they are still standing, not having collapsed under their own weight, is amazing. Equally boggling is that here, as in Ephesus, we were free to wander around. Touch the columns, climb over low walls; being able to interact with the buildings makes the experience more real. I suppose the authorities figure that after this many years, the scuff marks of tourists can’t do much more damage to a fallen column, but I think we’re also allowed in because they don’t fear a lawsuit. I can’t imagine getting this close to anything that looks so precarious at home.

The Romans built at Pamukkale for the hot springs, and, following in their footsteps for the second time this trip, we “took the waters” this afternoon. The pool is about 95 and has a funny sort of effervescence too it. Mike decided it was like swimming in a giant warm gin and tonic. I think maybe it was, because something certainly went to my head – how else to explain that I think I was swimming over Roman columns?