Turkey (I)

Came back from Turkey one week and a bit more, and I was recently going through the photos I took with my friend and while I was explaining some of the photos, it just occurred to me that I don't really remember things all that clearly.... hahaha... so that's why I really must get on this and write the blog update asap, before I forget any more.

Day 1: Hong Kong flight to Istanbul

Flight duration:12 hours (Istanbul is 5 hours behind Hong Kong)

We left Hong Kong on a midnight flight to Istanbul and it was packed full of travelers! The flight was pleasant enough and I slept through most of it, which is good, because when we arrived in Istanbul at 5am  the next day, we had to transfer to another flight that was leaving in one hours time.... and we still had to go through immigration and find the gate. Not only that, but as I need to get a visa before I can go through immigration to enter Turkey officially. Thankfully, the line for a visa was not too long and it was really simple, just pay and then the officer stamps/sticks a visa in your passport! Voila!

The funny thing about the flight was the instructions video - as Turkish Airways is the official sponsor for Manchester United Football Team, some of the members took part in the video to show what NOT to do...

above left & right: fabio/rafael;      middle: rooney

below left: Istanbul at 5am;    below right: Turkish Airways

Turkey Trip Route Map (start: AB point - Nevsehir, end: H point - Istanbul)

Above is a map of the route that we traveled over 9 days in Turkey (plus 2 days on the plane to and from Istanbul). As this trip was organized by my church, we took the route that goes to some of the churches/cities mentioned in the Book of Revelations about the Seven Churches.

As I said, we took a domestic flight to another city in Turkey to get to the region known as Cappadocia, we landed in the city of Nevsehir.

The airport at Nevsehir is probably the smallest airport I've been to so far.... we walked off the plane onto the tarmac and then in ten steps we were in the airport terminal, with only one small conveyor belt for the luggage, and in about 5 minutes we had retrieved all our luggage and the conveyor belt stopped.... lol.....

Cappadocia is the region that used to be known as Anatolia, this place has a really long history and has been recorded in history since 6th Century B.C.  Cappadocia means "Land of the Beautiful Horses".

Our first stop was to visit the Goreme Open Air Museum, an area of homes where the houses are carved out of stop and in the sides of cliffs. This area was first inhabited by Christians who wanted to escape from persecution, so they went into hiding living in this area.

Goreme Open Air Museum

After lunch, we went to visit an underground city called Kaymakli. About Kaymakli Underground Town:

"These cities/towns are carved out of a relatively soft rock called Tufa. The main reason of existence for these towns was to provide refuge during the recurring threat by invading armies. These underground towns are easily accessible from the corresponding towns above. There are living quarters, granaries, stables, wine cellars, shrines, all clustered around the ventilation shafts and wells to make life easier underground. All these were connected with a labyrinth of tunnels where strategically located large round stone slabs standing upright in the wall could be rolled to block the passage."

Take a look inside...

Below: one of the many tunnels, we had to stoop and fold ourselves almost in half to fit through

And one of the cities that is above ground...

above: photo (only this one) was taken with iphone, not bad right? it does all the balancing for me... haha....

above left: a modern city built in the middle of all these historical fairy chimneys (will explain)

below left: Turkish people love to sit outside and drink tea, they are ALWAYS drinking tea, there are a lot of "tea houses" and even delivery for cups of tea

below right: figurines of Swirling dervishes, they are part of a mystical sect of Islam, and they can just swirl and swirl on the spot for hours!

The layers of centuries show on the bedrock, see the different colour layers

Features like this are called Fairy Chimney by local people because they look like chimneys and the top is different rock from the rest, so it is believed that fairies/gods put the rock at the top, to me, they look more like the cupcake swirls! These formations are a result of different layers of rock layered over each other over centuries. And with the effects of weather by wind and rain, the softer rock weathered more quickly under the harder rock.

And this looks like a Pineapple Bun (Bo Lo Bao) hehe....

Pomegranate Juice: They sell them everywhere! And always use this manually operated juicer. To get a cup of juice like this, I think they used 2-3 pomegranates!

Then we went back to the hotel for dinner and get some sleep, what a packed first day!