Tuesday, October 9, 2007

I traveled all day yesterday to get to Kas from Bodrum. While the bus trip down the southern coast of Turkey was comfortable, it was long. The busses have stewards who come around with water, snacks, tea and coffee. The stewards wear uniforms that include a white shirt and a company tie or bow ties; it’s all very formal. On a five-hour trip there’s usually a twenty-minute stop at a rest area. The trip to Kas involved a four-hour ride and a change of busses for another two-hour ride. The scenery in this part of Turkey is quite impressive and it includes rugged pine/juniper-covered mountains that come right down to the tropical, blue ocean. A lot of people come here just to sail and explore the coast. In Kas, there are companies that will organize sea kayak trips, parasailing, and ballooning excursions.

Here on the south coast, the weather has turned almost tropical. It is hot and very humid. In the evening, after things cooled down a bit, I took a walk into the center of Kas to get a bite to eat. While I sat outside at a little café, a woman whose name is Sultan, came by to chat. She is an American who comes from Fullerton, CA, but has spent the past 23 years here in Turkey. Interestingly, our scout troop had spent a week in Fullerton, a couple of years ago as guests of a local scout troop; we stayed in their scout hut. It was a great trip over Spring break and I told Sultan about it. Sultan’s mother is Turkish so she can speak the language, and she gave me some travel suggestions.

Kas and the surrounding area have a long history. The ancient people here were called Lykians, and they were sailors and warriors in ancient times. In fact, they sent an army to Troy to fight alongside the Trojans against the Greeks. The Persians who ruled Anatolia for a long time conquered the Lykians. An ancient sarcophagus made of a single large stone stands on a pedestal in Kas. It’s called the Kings Tomb. There are many similar tombs along the coast and even under water. The area is subject to earthquakes and as a result some ancient cities and monuments are actually under water, or partially under water.

Kas will actually only be a short stop on my way inland to my next destination, Konya and Cappadocia.

Wednesday, October 11, 2007

I arrived in Konya yesterday; I am on the last leg of my journey through Turkey. The trip to Konya started early, the bus left at 7:30 a.m. I had to change busses in Antolya, the largest city on the south coast, and made it to Konya around 5:30 p.m.. Konya has more conservative Muslims than the other places I have been in Turkey; many women wear head coverings, but there are still women in western dress on the streets. The reason I have stopped in Konya is to visit a famous site, the home of the founder of Sufism, a man named Rumi. The site and the area are called Mevlana, and means Great Leader. I think most people have heard of whirling dervishes; this is where they come from.

I visited the former mosque that now houses artifacts related to Sufism and the life of Rumi. Sufism is one of the world’s great religions. Rumi died in Konya in 1273; he was a mystic, a philosopher, and a poet. He wrote in Persian, the language of the rulers of Turkey at the time. Although, I have not read too much of his poetry, people considered it some of the finest poetry ever written, and his poetry has been gaining popularity all over the world in modern times. Here is an example:

Be like the sun for grace and mercy
Be like the night to cover others’ faults
Be like running water fro generosity
Be like death for rage and anger
Be like the earth for modesty
Appear as you are
Be as you appear

Rumi

Mevlana was an Islamic mystic, but he was not an orthodox Muslim. He advocated “unlimited toleranc positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love.” To him and to his disciples all religions are “more or less” truthful. Sufis view Muslims, Jews, and Christians as similar, and Rumi’s peaceful and tolerant teaching has appealed to people of all sects and creeds.  Whirling Dervishes dance the “Sema” inspired by Mevlana; today, it is an integral part of Turkish custom, history, and culture. Sema represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent to "Perfect Turning” toward the truth. To become a member of the Sufi, a young man has to start a long training period. He first kneels on a carpet and animal skin for three days. At the foot of his bed his shoes are turned inward toward the bed, but if he fails his training, the shoes are reversed to point away from his bed. This is the sign that he must leave. The dancers dance with the right palm facing up and the left palm facing down. Their dress, especially the long skirts, has symbolic meaning.  Muslims do not believe in depicting images of living people or animals, so their drawing and painting art has been calligraphy. In the displays I saw the most amazingly detailed illuminated Sufi texts ablaze with gold and silver and the most ornate floral and geometric designs. The sarcophagus of Rumi is in the mosques along with those of many disciples. Carpets and other woven drapery adorn the coffins, and each coffin has a symbolic headdress on top and at one end of the coffin.

Today was the end of Ramadan, and the whole country is celebrating. Muslims can go back to eating during the day. No more will drummers march through streets at 3:00 a.m. to wake people so they can eat breakfast before sunrise. What joy!

I left Konya in the afternoon for a four-hour ride into the center of Turkey, Cappadocia. The topography changed drastically as the bus drove over the mountains onto a great plateau. The scenery reminded me of parts of west Texas or southern Kansas, dry, expansive farmland. The plateau, I learned later is about twelve hundred meters above sea level; it is hot and dry in the summer, and cold in the short winter. Mountains surround the plateau; some of the mountains reach four thousand meters. Much of the land is of volcanic origin, and the mountains are all extinct volcanoes. Agriculturally, Turkey has provided Europe and other parts of the world with great variety and abundance. I passed fields of potatoes being harvested, and at one collection point at least a hundred very large trucks were unloading potatoes onto an already immense pile several blocks long. We passed orchards of all kinds, apples, peaches, pistachios, etc. In other parts of turkey, they grow oranges, pomegranates, apricots, dates, olives, and other hot climate plants. I have been purchasing and eating local apples, plums, bananas and other fruit on my journey, and it has all been excellent.

Friday, October 12, 2007

I am in the small town of Goreme in Cappadocia; it is an extraordinary place due to the unusual sand stone formations. Do you remember a “Star Wars” movie in which there are pointy rock formations that are filled with caves dwelling aliens; that’s Goreme. There are many such places, and I toured some of them today.

One site is called the Castle Monastery, where monks built a sanctuary and chapel in the caves high up on a set of sandstone monoliths. There was even a cave for camels, as this part of the world is on the “silk” road to Asia. Another site is part of an immense complex called the underground city. Literally eight stories of rooms and facilities covering about ten square miles! There are concealed ventilation shafts, rooms that served as kitchens with tandori style cooking pits, and more chapels. Although these places go back several thousand years, they were used extensively during the early Christian, Byzantine period.

The weather here is delightful, and a welcome change from the coast. Here we have warm, sunny days and cool nights, and very low humidity. This is the perfect season to visit; the summer must be unbearable, however.

In the afternoon, we hiked about three miles through a canyon called Ihlara Valley. The canyon walls are three hundred meters high, and a clean river flows along the length of the canyon so there is lush vegetation along the trail. We had lunch at the end of the trail where a few restaurants serve hikers. The restaurants put “floating” platforms on the river. The platforms have Turkish style carpeted couches that surround short tables. People reclining on the couches have lunch on the river; it’s great.

The last stop on the tour was a little commercial; we stopped at an onyx factory to watch a man make an onyx “egg” using a lathe and polishing wheel. Interesting. They told us there are twelve different colors of onyx in the world, and that Turkey has seven. Almost all are translucent, except for the black and the gray onyx. The other gemstone found in this part of Turkey is turquoise; there are four major types of turquoise: Turkish, Chinese, Arizona/Mexico, and one more (can’t remember). The person explaining things showed us how imitation turquoise is made. It’s hard to tell the imitation from the real, but if the imitation is broken, a white ceramic interior is obvious. I think it would be easy to be fooled.

My plan is to stay one more day in Cappadocia, visiting an open-air museum and some other places. Tomorrow, I will take the bus to Ankaraa, then catch a flight to Izmir. From Izmir, I will take a bus to the coast and hop a ferry to Samos, Greece. That’s traveling, I’d say!

Philip Sternberg
Scoutmaster, Troop 1131